Mr. Damien McCallion:

Some of those who have been most affected by this crisis have become the greatest advocates for the programme. We spoke about Laura Brennan in a different context earlier. As I said, we still have a challenge to restore confidence and we need to address the backlog. If people are waiting for a long period, that is a challenge for us and we are working to address that. Hopefully, as we get through the backlog, that will also help. It is through some of those actions that confidence will begin to be restored. The numbers remain stable and increased rather than decreased last year. People also re-engaged with the programme, which was positive. That is ultimately where we want to be. HPV primary screening will, we hope, create another opportunity to rebuild confidence. As Dr. Doherty stated, we need to get all of those ingredients right. The professionals are very important as well and we all have great faith in them. General practitioners are probably the most trusted health professionals. We have a lot of work to do. There are 4,500 smear takers and GPs who engage with the programme daily and their confidence has also been impacted. We have to rebuild confidence among this group and among women and their families.