Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was watching proceedings earlier. Going back to 2008, I agree that the national cervical screening programme was absolutely the correct thing to do. There are no ifs and buts on that but we need to separate that from the decision to outsource to the USA. That was deadly dangerous and unforgivable. The witnesses may dispute that. I think that Dr. David Gibbons resigned over this because he felt so strongly about this. As resignations are not that common, we need to take heed of it and maybe not just pass it over. At the time, he pointed out that there were one third fewer diagnoses than there were in Ireland at the time. It is a public servant's job to give advice and recommendations but at the end of the day a Minister and Cabinet made that decision. No matter how all of this unfolds when we go down the road, that was a deadly decision and it feeds back into the matter of accountability and us all being accountable for the decisions that we make. I want to ask some specific questions which go back to the review and audit for the 1,800 smears. When will that audit begin and when will it finish? Why do the witnesses think the Taoiseach promised that they would be completed last May? Was he misguided in doing that?