Dr. Karin Denton:

Up to 2013, no one in Ireland had evidence that CPL was outsourcing. Similarly, a quality assurance visit in 2014 by Irish staff to the premises in Austin did not reveal any such evidence. We do not know if that was because the outsourcing was not disclosed to them or for other reasons. When I went to the laboratory with two of my colleagues, we asked a direct question on the matter and got the partial answer that CPL was unable to give us exact numbers but may have sent some tests to Florida and Honolulu. Subsequently, it turned out that CPL had a record of exactly how many samples were sent to those laboratories, which it later gave to us. Our repeated experience has been that one gets a partial answer to a direct question and that while there are accurate data, they have sometimes been quite difficult to get.

We are going back in a couple of weeks to try to establish what the Deputy is seeking, namely, the exact number of samples that were subcontracted to laboratories and the locations of those laboratories. Many of the labs to which the tests were subcontracted no longer exist and many were very small. We cannot carry out a full review of the level of the services in such locations because the labs are no longer there.