Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Yes, I was. In 2007, having previously been director of BreastCheck, I became the first chief executive of the National Cancer Screening Service board. That board was created to continue with BreastCheck, to seek to roll out what had been a fledgling, regionally-based Irish cervical cancer screening programme from about 1996, which had not rolled out at that point, and to begin the investigative process around the development of BowelScreen. At the time I was very pleased to be given that opportunity because as early as 1993, when I was chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, I had participated in a lobbying exercise to seek to win Government policy. I hope I played some small part in the development of the pilot programme in Limerick. That programme in Limerick, 12 years on, had not achieved all that it could. We were having as many smear tests taken in this country without a cervical programme, probably more than we do now with an organised programme, and it had made absolutely no difference to the incidence of cervical cancer. Women were waiting up to a year in some instances for results. One could not roll out a screening programme on that basis. Some of those tests were being done on kitchen tables at home on overtime in non-quality assured circumstances.

The priority was to ensure that this country got a cervical screening programme to minimise the incidence of, and reduce deaths from, cervical cancer. This programme has brought down the incidence by 7% per year. There have been 50,000 high grade detections of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, CIN, which is a pre-cancerous abnormality of the cervix, and I am absolutely certain that one of the best day's work I ever did was to ensure that this county had a national cervical screening programme that is currently called CervicalCheck. I know that it has saved many lives, and I am very pleased it has. I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to say that today.