Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It is a pity that we cannot ask questions of Mr. O'Brien. I was at the meeting of the committee last week and wished to pursue something he stated there. Perhaps one of the other representatives present can answer my query. Many people are talking about the plaque on the office wall at the HSE which is intended to send out a great message to the masses who work for it. As regards speaking truth to power, Noam Chomsky, in a critique of how the system works, said that power already knows the truth and is busy concealing it.

Maybe it is best not to keep that plaque on the wall. I note that while Mr. O'Brien was here, he said that not every case of cervical cancer was referred back to CervicalCheck for audit. To quote, he said "I think they always knew that". However, the Minister was only hit with that news 20 minutes before he got up to speak to the Dáil. Does he still have confidence in Mr. Tony O'Brien and others who are meant to be reporting to him?

I would just like to say that I am all for heads rolling and people being accountable, but there is also a danger that heads can roll while the system remains in place. The questions I am more concerned with are about the system. Yesterday, I asked about the anomalies in some of the lab results. People on the committee will recall that when Mr. O'Brien was here last week, he said that there were two pairs of eyes watching every test. On foot of that, a woman who was subsequently diagnosed with cervical cancer contacted me over the weekend, because she was watching the committee. People are actually watching this. She was particularly interested in that, because she had two negative results, and then a year later was diagnosed with a large tumour. She just found it very difficult to believe, based on what she had experienced, that there were two pairs of eyes looking.

I met a pathologist over the weekend. He ran a cervical screening lab for at least a year. He said that in his experience, each test would take at least ten minutes. Ten to 15 would be the best recommendation. That would mean that every slide in these labs is taking 20 to 30 minutes to be looked at, if we follow Mr. O'Brien's claim. I would have liked to ask him if he still stands over that. Every test is signed off on by a cytologist. Can we check how many were done by each cytologist? Are they within the limit of 12,000 a year that is recommended by CervicalCheck's quality assurance? The quality assurance committee - what were they doing if they were not looking at, for example, what is up on the website now? I think it went up on Saturday evening. In reference to the three labs, A, B and C, people have figured out that B is the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, A is Medlab Pathology and C is Quest Diagnostics. There are noticeable differences in the results over the three years. Without blinding people with science, that is particularly so for lower-grade abnormalities. A woman I spoke to-----