Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I had to step out to deal with a Commencement Matter in the Seanad. I welcome Dr. Scally and his colleagues. I welcome the call for the establishment of a national screening committee. That is an excellent call in terms of the introduction of new programmes and the modifying of existing ones. Does Dr. Scally consider it is acceptable that there is still no manager within the HSE in charge of the cervical screening programme? Is he satisfied with the timelines for the introduction of the HPV testing? Does he believe that Mr. John Connaghan will hold relevant HSE managers accountable for their lack of performance as a consequence of this report? Who will be held to account for the contract mismanagement, the lack of quality assurance, the non-disclosure and the utter lack of communication? Also, why were the laboratories not fully investigated when the HSE knew that there were issues? This may still not have happened even though the laboratories have admitted liability and many of them have settled in court. Dr. Scally may already have touched on some of those issues.