Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Based on that, do not respond to my questions. I want the delegation to take them on board. I will not ask any questions about what Portiuncula Hospital and we are going to deal with that during a specific session. I have lots of questions relating to that.

I take a particular interest in eHealth Ireland. I ask Mr. Sullivan to break down the proposed spend for that over the coming years. I understand acute hospitals are being prioritised.

There are issues relating to paediatric services in Dublin, particularly in Tallaght. The paediatric emergency service area has been taken over. The provision of beds for paediatric patients is not what it was. I understand that there are other issues in terms of elective surgery for paediatric patients. I know of one 13 year old boy who has Down's syndrome and who has been in desperate need of a hip replacement for two years. He has begged me to help him. His family have asked for my help. The young lad is in serious pain. There has been messing around going on for a significant period, which leads me to think that there are issues there. I have been in touch with the general manager. Are there broader issues with paediatric services?

On cervical screening, I thank the Minister for taking what I said on board. Random sampling is necessary given the scale of the issue and concern in order to give a quick follow through in terms of public confidence.

With regard to the HTA for the HPV for boys, HIQA needs to come through ASAP. The third thing is that I believe the HPV process relating to the new screening needs to be brought forward as quickly as possible and to deal upfront with the issues relating to laboratories and IT because they are the issues that would hold it up.

I attended a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach yesterday where the State Claims Agency told us that unless the laboratories give indemnity on these ten cases, and there will be more, the agency has no choice but to continue as part of the process of pursuing these women. This may require emergency legislation to allow the State Claims Agency to change tack because it is actually confined in what it can do. Will the Minister bring that to Cabinet and consider an emergency change? I am sure all of us would help him to change that to ensure the State Claims Agency does not have to be part of pursuing these women.

I return to my main issue. We know that last week, 1,482 cases were reviewed as part of CervicalCheck. We also know that there were issues with scans in 209 of those, of which 162 were not notified. We know that as a consequence, unfortunately, 17 women died. We now know that 100,621 cases from National Cancer Registry Ireland were not given to CervicalCheck. We now know from Tony O'Brien that this was known for years. I understand that National Cancer Registry Ireland has been writing to the Department for years. There are two critical questions that need to be answered immediately. We need to find out when the Department knew this and if or why it did not do anything. The real issue was if it was 14, 82, 209 and 17, when will we know the proportionality regarding the number of cases? I accept the number will be smaller because it probably involves older women, many of whom may not have been screened, although many of whom were. What proportion of women have been not told? What is the comparable figure to 2009 for these women? Unfortunately, women's lives were put at risk. It correlates. Women's lives were put at risk so the bottom line is the fact that National Cancer Registry Ireland, which I believe is a good organisation, requested or tried to transfer these cases to CervicalCheck and was unable to do so probably because of data protection rubbish. CervicalCheck was trying to get these cases from National Cancer Registry Ireland. A total of 1,621 cases were not part of the audit. As a consequence of that, we do not know how many of those cases had issues with the way in which they were surveyed and smeared and we also do not know how many of those cases jeopardised women's lives and potentially, women who passed away. Can I say this-----