Mr. Jim Breslin:

The source of the advice was officials in the Department of Health, including the chief medical officer. As the Vice Chairman said, the context was very much the anxiety among interested parties and on the part of concerned women who were ringing the helpline seeking clarity. There was a great deal of anxiety. There was undoubtedly a situation in which women who could afford to do so were going to present at their GPs while women who could not afford to do so might not. The Minister had, therefore, to make a rapid decision. Negotiations on a fee took place with the IMO and the option to consult their GPs was provided to women. If, following a consultation, a woman and her family doctor decided to have a retest, that was paid for. That was the context. Officials were involved in the decision and provided the Minister with the advice I have outlined.

On the issue of resources, it is fair to say that in all of our discussions with the HSE during 2018 on foot of the CervicalCheck controversy, we were quick to put any resources in place that were required. Financial provision around the measures that had to be put in place to respond to the controversy was rapidly deployed and the HSE was in constant contact with us on costs, all of which were met over the course of 2018. The issue arising in this situation is not one of financial resources but of the ability to leverage additional capacity. The HSE can speak to the substantial amount of work it has done to increase the capacity of the screening programme. It continues to work in that regard, but there are constraints.

It was difficult to quantify when making the decision what the exact uptake of retests would be. We now know the level of uptake. The interest and anxiety around CervicalCheck continued for a protracted period which undoubtedly fed into that. It is worth noting that the finalisation of the Scally report allowed for clarity around the issue. However, the report took longer than was originally envisaged. There was a period while Dr. Scally was looking at the laboratories and doing his work when retests continued. As the Minister said in the House last week, he took further advice once the Scally report was completed. That advice led him to write to the HSE to say it was an appropriate time to bring retesting to an end. The HSE advised that while it would do so, the end of December should be the cut-off point as tests were scheduled into that month for women. That has now taken place.