Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Obviously I understand everything that Mr. McCallion has said but there is a requirement to figure out with why things happened as they did and "institutional failure" is just too fluffy. I am not picking on anyone when I say that. We need to find out why things happened in the way they did and Mr. McCallion said that he would do that. He possibly cannot answer my question now but I am just reminding him of the commitments made to this committee.

I have another question for the Department based on the response it has given me, which is not very comprehensive. I am not trying to catch anybody out here. I just wanted to know if the Department recommended that free smear tests be provided to all women and if so, if it would provide the relevant documentation to us. It was a simple question and if the answer is "yes", that is fine. The answer given is a bit too generic. I wanted to determine if the Department recommended it. If the Department recommended it and the Minister announced it, that is fine. I just wanted an assurance that this is exactly what happened and that the CMO was involved, in consultation with others.

According to the Department, the costs are based on take-up to date and an assessment of these costs will be made based upon the most up to date information and provided to the committee. As a former Minister, I know that one must budget for items such as this. This free testing programme has been going on for some time. We all know about the Department of Health and supplementary budgets. There must be an estimate of the projected final cost somewhere and that should be made available to this committee now. There must be a figure because this has been going on since May.