Dr. Gabriel Scally:

I add my regrets on the deaths of the two women at the weekend. It was a timely reminder of the seriousness of the problem of cervical cancer and that one of the tasks arising was to try to ensure it would become an increasingly rare event in the next decade or two. We will I hope not see such deaths again in our lifetimes. There is the possibility that cervical cancer will be turned into an extremely rare disease. I am saddened by the deaths of the two women.

It was a great honour to undertake this piece of work and a great privilege to meet many of the women affected and talk to them in person, on the telephone and at meetings, as well as to talk to the relatives of those who had passed on. I took great encouragement from their help and support and what they told me, often in frank terms, about their illness and experiences which I have done my best to fully reflect in the report.

I apologise to the joint committee and the Oireachtas for taking so long to deliver my report. My terms of reference were specific about when it should have been delivered and I failed in that regard. I hope I did not fail in too many respects, but I fully admit that I failed in that regard, for which I apologise. As the committee will understand, the delay was caused by the extremely poor provision of information in response to our queries and requests for information. It took a long time to get the information. Certainly, it was still appearing within a week or ten days of finalisation of the report. However, I am pleased to say we received all of the information we had requested, without redactions. We had interesting discussions about it and are unaware of any document that was withheld that we should have seen. I am satisfied that we had an adequate opportunity to go through the information with which we had been provided. I apologise again for taking so long.

I also apologise for not completing the job. Late in the day, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Denton and others, through our inquiries, we discovered that there were serious issues arising about the laboratories to which the slides of Irish women had been sent. By the end of the inquiry we were unable to complete our inquiries into that and other matters pertaining to the contracts and the process of tendering. We suggested there was further work we could do in the near future and the Minister has so agreed. I hope we will finish work on these important matters satisfactorily within a short time.

The Chairman asked three questions.