Dr. Tony Holohan:

I understand. I am going to describe my understanding of the entire history and then why I felt it was a fair and reasonable judgment not to escalate any concern in respect of it. My entire understanding was an organisation was making plans and preparations to disclose information to women, which was good by international and national standards. It was preparing to do so and was awake and alive to the potential risks in doing so, problem-solving and tracking the numbers and reporting to us in the context of regular meetings we had in different fora. Each time we met to consider a range of issues to do with cancer and then a range of issues to do with health and well-being we received an update. The updates were continuing to assure us that it was progressing. That is what I understood it to mean. I understood it in the context of a population-based programme, what the value of all of this would be and what preparations would need to be made by the screening service to ensure it went well. We now know that it did not, but we did not have that information at the time.