David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know what to say to Vicky, Stephen and others. Thank you for coming here and sharing your stories with us. As you know, we had representatives of the HSE and Department before us last week. We will have more representatives before us tomorrow. Some of those people that Stephen spoke about that knew about the strategy, the memo and the cover-up which has been referred to, will be here tomorrow. We will ask the hard questions on your behalf, on Vicky's behalf and all of the women's behalf, and of those husbands and partners who are suffering.

Any of you can answer this question but I know that Vicky's solicitor has very publicly said that he believes that there is a cover-up in the main centres relating to the lack of open disclosure, the fact that discretion was given to consultants and, in the cases of women who passed away, the information was not passed on to their next of kin. We heard Stephen's story. If Mr. Cian O'Carroll is in a position to address the committee, he might expand on that a bit more with regard to his view of a cover-up and what exactly he meant by that. He might also, if he can - and Vicky or Stephen can respond to this too - talk to me about how people were selected for audit in the first place. Given the documentation that emerged yesterday, does Mr. O'Carroll feel there were any discrepancies or issues relating to how people were selected for the audit?

I am looking at a questions and answers document that was prepared for the Department and the HSE. It talks about the 1,120 cases that were part of the audit by December 2015. It says that 317 cases, which is 28.3% of the total cases, were flagged for further review. In most, though not all, of these reviewed cases, there may have been an opportunity for earlier intervention. This includes pre-cancerous cell changes that were not detected. Those for whom this resulted in a delay in diagnosis of treatment are most likely dead.

I want to ask Stephen if that is what happened to Irene and whether she is in that category. Vicky, how is that different from your own experience? You said yours potentially might have been an outlier, or was it that it was an outlier in terms of how your smear test was so badly misread?

In terms of Mr. O'Carroll's work, did he discover any problems with the lab itself? Vicky put it extremely well, better than anybody could, that the issues are open disclosure and patient safety. I find it incredible that the HSE and the Department are still saying there are no patient safety issues when we clearly heard what happened in your case. It is beyond words that they still say that, but you also talked about the labs. When you talked about the labs being an issue, are you talking about the performance of the labs, issues in relation to the labs and the relationship between the labs possibly preventing information getting to patients because of contractual issues? Is that the issue? You might be able to come back on some of those points.

Those are the questions I have. I will finish by saying that I think everybody admires your bravery and your courage, Vicky, as well as yours, Stephen. I genuinely wish you both well. It is sad you have had to come here and tell your story but I think it is worthwhile for us in view of our preparations for tomorrow.