Mr. Damien McCallion:

Yes. We can perhaps recap on all the questions in respect of specifics but our intention is to confirm the clinical position of each of the women who were part of the original audit, so we are clear. If there are particular pieces within that perhaps we can make sure but our priority is to link with the patients and with the hospitals and make sure we have a comprehensive picture. Obviously it will anonymised when feeding it back.

The Deputy's last point was about the breakdown of the figures in respect of the 221 women. I had mentioned this previously in response to an earlier question. One of the challenges for us is we have not had a cytopathologist in the programme. This issue was recognised by Dr. Scally as a deficit. We saw this ourselves and the HSE tried to recruit for that position even prior to Dr. Scally's report. We have been unsuccessful in that and we have gone twice to recruit. I am now in discussions with a person overseas about coming to Ireland and taking up a contract here. That is crucial in getting the breakdown because, for example, within the 221 women who have been impacted, many had multiple smear tests that went to multiple laboratories over different time periods. The laboratories that were used in Ireland in the earlier stages would have detected higher rates of abnormalities because they were detecting more cervical cancers in the early stage of the programme. We need a cytopathologist to do that work. While I am trying to conclude recruiting a person on a full-time basis this is an ongoing need and not just for the audit issue. I have also managed to source a person, again from outside the State, who will undertake that specific piece of work over the next four or five weeks. We intend to conclude that work separately over the next four to five weeks. We will also have that done on this side of Christmas.

I flag for the committee the fact that the recruitment around that core resource has been very challenging. This cytopathology need is crucial for a programme such as cervical screening.