Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I add my voice to the tributes to Laura Brennan. What was so significant was her age. When people of my age tell teenagers what to do they may not listen but Ms Brennan's age and youth, which were the great tragedy of it all, had such an impact. It is not long ago that a few of us who, like the HSE and CervicalCheck, were battling to get the vaccination rate up had to deal with terrible abuse on social media, as did Laura Brennan. It is great to see how she was able to stand up in the face of such abuse. She saved lives and, to my mind, she saved the HPV programme because, to call a spade a spade, the HPV vaccination rate was heading below 50%, which would have rendered the programme unviable. Ms Brennan saved lives and we should all be forever grateful to her. We should treat a vaccination rate of 70% as a line in the sand. It would be a disservice to Laura Brennan's memory to allow it to fall below 70% again. I would like to see it increase to 95%.

To follow on from Deputy Murphy O'Mahony's comments on fairness, I want to address the issue of the additional free smear out of cycle. My understanding is that there was pressure on GP surgeries at the time because women of means who could afford an additional smear were asking for an additional test. The response was to provide the option of a free smear. I understand from discussions in previous meetings that women did not use a token to get a free smear but a clinical decision was made at the bedside with a GP. Perhaps Dr. Doherty will confirm that it was a clinical decision at the bedside and there were no tokens for a free smear. It is important to point out that not everyone was given a free smear out of cycle.