Dr. Gabriel Scally:

Of course, they are and the Deputy is correct to point out the difference. We are only able to make a judgment with the caveat that it is on the basis of the information we have. We encountered a great deal of difficulty, first, in finding out about the existence of laboratories and, second, in getting data for those laboratories, especially those which had closed. We must remember that for most of these labs we are talking about events that took place nine or ten years ago. As such, many staff members were not available to be interviewed. Nevertheless, members of our team visited the companies and many of the labs and went through the data for the labs for all of the Irish women's slides that were sent. There was no indication that any of the labs were particularly problematic. That said, we may learn more from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists about whether there is a statistically significant pattern. That is a judgment for later. Dr. Denton may wish to comment on the issue.