Dr. Stephanie O'Keeffe:

That information was not relayed to me. Accordingly, I was not able to do anything about it. From my perspective with regard to the briefings that I had and those I had forwarded to both the director general and to the Department, the process was going according to plan and everybody had been briefed on it. Everybody knew what the plan was and what was the intention. There were no briefings or no escalations of that information that the NSS may have had regarding doctors being uncomfortable with the process.

From what I am aware of, there was clearly a formal escalation of that between the consultant in Limerick and between the clinical director of the CervicalCheck programme that was discussed within the NSS but it was not escalated to me at that time. Accordingly, I could neither resolve the issue for them nor support them in that. Neither could I escalate it myself.