Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Mullen has asked some very important questions. The point I was trying to make in the article to which he referred is that the clinical audit related to people who had already been diagnosed with cervical cancer. That is the message we have been trying to communicate for the past two weeks. I did not want any woman watching these debates while sitting at home or in her workplace and thinking the HSE or CervicalCheck has done an audit on her and knows she has a cancer but has not told her. My comments that the Senator referenced very much related to the fact that the clinical audit was in respect of women who had already been diagnosed with cervical cancer. The question and upset was about their not having been told about their earlier audit.

The Senator touched on the very interesting point of a larger random sample audit of non-cancer cases, as raised by Deputy Kelly and several others in the Dáil last night and which Cabinet colleagues also brought to my attention. We are going to ask the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology to come here and I will be guided by them in that regard. My gut feeling is that such blind sample would be worthwhile in terms of providing assurance and that is something I would like to do. I have no information that there is anybody in this country who has a cancer about which the HSE knows but has not told the person. That is the differentiation I was trying to make.