Mr. Gerard O?Mahony:

I will explain our position. In 2007 there was a backlog of screening in the State. A number of us were invited, along with the National Cancer Screening Service, to look at where we could find laboratories across the UK and France that might be able to take our backlog, or help us with our backlog. We researched this and had procurement people from the HSE with us that led the team. We came back with information on people who were training and people who were being educated in colleges in this discipline, but like a bolt out of the blue, in March of 2008 we were told that the work would go to tender. I am trying to remember dates but we had travelled to the UK and to France in May and June and it was later in the autumn out of the blue the decision was taken that the work would go to the US. I certainly did not visit the laboratory in the US, and I know nobody of the cytology fraternity at that stage who had visited a laboratory in the US.