Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I wish Dr. Doherty luck in her new role. I hope it all goes very well for her. Most of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked but I was not satisfied with some of the answers so I want to go over some old ground. A few months ago, the Minister sat where the witnesses are sitting now and I asked him the reason he went ahead with the out-of-cycle testing when it was clear it had been recommended that he should not do it. He looked at me and said that that recommendation had not reached him. With what came out last night, I believe it did reach him. He is not here to answer for himself but it is clear that officials in the HSE and in the Department of Health were told not to go ahead or it was recommended that they should not go ahead with it. Do the witnesses believe that advice did or did not reach the Minister?