Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been in the Oireachtas since 2002. I am ashamed that, as the body that is supposed to hold all of these organisations to account, we have all spectacularly failed you, and for that I am personally sorry. I have two questions, one for each, although you covered it, Stephen. Normally, we call people "Mister" and so on in here but if you do not mind, we can be more informal. Given the work that is under way, and you did touch on this, you may want to add something in terms of the Scally scoping report. We also have the indication of a commission of investigation after that and the indication of a peer review, as well as the work of the health committee and this committee. In terms of accountability, if there are any tangible actions both of you would like to see now, you might expand on that. Clearly, you have highlighted an awful lot that, as Deputy Cullinane said, will feed into our questioning tomorrow, and we will do that.

The other comment is that the principles of care that underpin actions in Ireland are from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists following the report in 2011. The first of them is that the woman must be at the centre of her own care. Have you any comment on that, give it is supposed to be principle No. 1?

Very finally and quite specifically, and Deputy Cullinane touched on this, you mentioned that MedLab was the lab where your test was. We know from its confirmation and a statement on Sunday that it subcontracted to a third-party laboratory, and we will be asking on contractual issues about that tomorrow. I know from speaking to some GPs that all the results coming back to them were signed by an Irish-registered pathologist. I wondered if there was any information you had as to whether your tests were done on-site there, or were they a part of the backlog situation where MedLab subcontracted this work. If it was a subcontracted test, were you or your physicians informed of that in your own research through the legal process or otherwise? If so, is it the case that the Irish-registered pathologist based in Sandyford is transcribing results from another lab and just signing off on them, taking them as correct, or is that person looking under a microscope to say, "Yes, I concur with that", and then signing off on them? That is something that would be useful for us to know in terms of the process.

Again, I want to thank you very much for being here today and for all you have done.