Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to conclude with Dr. Scally's two recommendations, the first of which is that it be made even more explicit in the contracts between the HSE and labs that there can be no unilateral onward contracting and the primary contractors cannot just subcontract the work. Dr. Scally has stated that this provision is already in the contracts but that he would like it to be made more explicit.

Dr. Scally's second recommendation is that a consistent quality assurance process be developed and implemented globally so that, rather than consider the accreditation from another country, CervicalCheck or the HSE would not be interested in that accreditation and would instead set out the accreditation in Ireland that people would have to meet.

I am curious to know why what happened with the subcontracting happened. The HSE contracted in good faith, but it turns out that the lab subcontracted. I am not going to say whether that was in bad faith, but it certainly seems to have been in breach of contract. I have reached an observation from our examination of CervicalCheck. We all think of these State programmes as well-resourced, well-financed and slick operations with plenty of staff, doctors, accountants, lawyers and administrators to do all the work that needs to be done. CervicalCheck was a world-class programme, but it was actually being run on spit and boot polish. It was about half of Dr. Flannelly's time and there was a very small staff, including the staff processing the slides and the management staff. Is it Dr. Scally's conclusion that the HSE and CervicalCheck never spotted this subcontracting because they did not have the required legal expertise? This is serious stuff involving contract enforcement and supervision and carrying out on-site audits. Is it the case that the HSE and CervicalCheck did not have the facilities to do that? If they did, is this something that they should have spotted but failed in their duty to do so? Where do matters stand today? It is one thing for us all to talk about what the good people of CervicalCheck should be doing in terms of contract enforcement.

Dr. Scally's second recommendation was on developing a robust global quality assurance protocol and enforcing it. There is no point in just having a document on the shelf. There must be the scientists, doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on to get on planes and physically travel. Did CervicalCheck have the requisite firepower to do this? Does it now have the firepower to implement these recommendations properly?