Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This goes back to the e-mail sent by Mr. Connaghan to several individuals on 11 May. He outlined the purpose of the communications strategy.

I wish to go back to what Mr. Breslin said earlier about why that particular strategy was not communicated up the line. This is the difficulty I have and this is why I am struggling to get my head around it. There is a communications strategy in place and the whole purpose of the communications strategy is to try to protect the efficacy of the CervicalCheck programme in the event that women who are taking legal action go public and there are headlines, as per the memorandum. The whole purpose of the communication strategy is to reassure other women to ensure that uptake of the programme is not harmed.

The difficulty I have is that the very people who would be asked questions publically and politically were not even aware that there was an issue in the first place. That is the aspect I am struggling with given that such effort went into the communications strategy to protect the integrity of the programme in the event that anything went wrong as a result of people going public, yet it seems there was absolutely no communication beyond a certain level. It did not reach Mr. Breslin. It did not reach anyone in political circles, for example, the Minister or members of Government. They would be the very first people to answer if questions were asked. The microphone is going to be stuck under the Minister's nose to answer the questions, but he was not aware of it. Can someone explain that to me?