Mr. Damien McCallion:

On the tenders, Dr. Scally highlighted the fact that one tender had been destroyed. Our procurement people looked into this and found that it was destroyed in line with the records retention policy. It was unfortunate that it happened when it did. We have sought the original tender from the laboratory and it is trying to source that for us currently. While it was within the policy of record retention, it was unfortunate in the context and should not have happened but as I have said, we have sought the original tender document from the laboratory concerned.

On the issue of lab performance, when the crisis broke and the issues emerged around the laboratories, Dr. Scally was very clear that he was going to conduct an investigation into the labs. That was done and that was the immediate response. Deputy Kelly has highlighted an important point going forward. One of the lessons from this, which is in Dr. Scally's report, is that we need to strengthen the quality assurance around the process and the inspections. Another observation that Dr. Scally made was that we need to ensure, as a laboratory-based programme for cervical screening, that we have much stronger laboratory and cytopathology input to the programme than was the case previously. In that context, we advertised for a national cytopathology lead for the cervical screening programme. We have also brought in a quality and risk person to analyse our quality assurance processes and to try to strengthen them.

The straight answer is that we will need to increase site visits and quality assurance as a result of Dr. Scally's report.