Mr. Damien McCallion:

I agree on the need for public information and the concern about numbers. The important point is that these are all women who have or have had cervical cancer. The CervicalCheck programme went through 1,400 cases, of which 209 were the women identified as having a different interpretation. They were the immediate priority. The issue that then emerged was that there were a number of women in the National Cancer Registry with whom the CervicalCheck programme had not made contact. That is the group for which we have taken the data from the National Cancer Registry. We are matching them through with the screening programme and it will come up with a number which will be much lower than 1,600, which is the total. We had a discussion with the Department without knowing the final number. We will probably be asking the new review team to prioritise the women in question in order that they will be contacted first to make them aware. All that is being said is that they have had cervical cancer, were in contact with the screening programme and have smears that need to be audited as a result. It is not making a conclusion as to whether there was a difficulty. They will be the next priority once we know who they are. Through the faculty process, we want the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to prioritise the women early to offer them certainty. I accept that it has been very complex with all of the numbers, particularly for women who are listening to all of this.