Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before I bring in our non-members, the first of who will be Deputy Bríd Smith, I want to say that the issues that arose last April were caused by non-disclosure, in particular the non-disclosure of a look-back audit on women who had already been diagnosed with cancer and whose smears were being reviewed. That was the issue at the time, and it still is an issue. At the moment the issue is the backlog on smear results. It is important to say that 65,000 women have been identified through the screening programme as having varying grades of abnormality and who have been treated very successfully by the programme and are walking around today, almost oblivious to the fact that they had a brush with cancer and were treated at a pre-cancerous stage. It is important to point out that 65,000 women benefitted substantially from the programme. A small number of women did not.

As has been outlined, a screening programme is not the same as a diagnostic programme. No screening programme will identify every single cancer. In population health the population benefits, but the individual may not benefit. The majority of individuals do, however.

We are talking about the backlog and the idea of moving towards HPV testing. I gather from our discussion this morning that those topics are interlinked, and until we clear the backlog and stabilise the situation we cannot really move on to HPV testing, which would be a more accurate means of testing. It brings its own challenges, changes and referral pathways, but it is nevertheless a goal we are trying to reach.

In the interests of stabilising the situation, is there a possibility that the cervical screening programme will not be suspended but rather the routine screening will be suspended for a number of months? Those who are in colposcopy would continue to be screened, as per the protocol, and those who are being brought back for smears because of the results of previous smears can continue to have those smears carried out, but those who are on the normal recall system, for every three years or five years, which is the majority of the people coming through the programme at the moment could have their screening suspended for a number of months to allow the backlog to be cleared. That would represent a more rapid solution which could stabilise the situation and allow a movement towards HPV testing, rather than trawling the world for extra laboratory services which do not seem to be available, or developing capacity in the Coombe, which is going to take at least two years because of the need to build a structure and hire staff. By suspending the routine smears for a number of months the situation could be stabilised rapidly and would allow the programme for HPV testing to commence.