Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for letting me in and apologise for being late. I have two brief questions, one of which follows from Dr. Regan's remarks.

I want to ask about the measures taken by the cervical cancer national cancer screening services quality assurance in cytopathology. Quality assurance site visits to laboratory providers is listed as one of the things that must be undertaken, however, it does not say how many visits are required. In a recent parliamentary question, I asked how many site visits had been carried out on all the labs since outsourcing began and was told there had been two, one in 2011 and the other in 2014. Do the witnesses think that is good enough? How bad is this State's oversight on outsourcing of the CervicalCheck programme?

My second question is one I keep asking and am told that I will be given the answer. Before he left, Tony O'Brien was before the health committee where he gave a commitment to me that of the 209 misread tests, he would make me a list of the specific laboratories from which they came. One of his officials, Mr. John Gleeson, said that they would name them lab A, lab B, and lab C, when Mr. O'Brien interrupted and said, no, he would give me the names of the labs. I have not received them. At a private meeting with the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, with representatives of the health spokespersons from each party, I asked the same question. The Minister said "We will get that for you Deputy Smith". Recently when the Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, was filling in for the Taoiseach at Leaders Questions, I asked him and he promised he would get it for me. All this time has passed and we still have not been given this information. How difficult or how easy would it be to get the information about which labs the misread tests came from? Was it ten from one, 20 from another and 30 from the other? It is a simple question that I have asked repeatedly and cannot get an answer. The last time I raised it I was told that it would be part of the scoping exercise. I have no problem with that but when what seems to me to be a simple question is asked, an answer should be available. Is this a hard question to answer or not?