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

I understand that. However, in the case of State contracts, specifically the contracts for cervical and bowel screening, the ISO standard is specified. The contracts have been signed with the companies. MedLab Pathology had a laboratory in Manchester, with a guy working on his own, of whom INAB was blissfully unaware for nine months, until the laboratory applied for accreditation for the second employee. Then, in a unique moment in INAB's history since 1985, it retrospectively, a word the delegates do not like, granted accreditation based on certain information, which I assume consisted of laboratory files, calibration documents, humidity information, etc. As I have worked in a laboratory, I have an idea of what goes on. When INAB's agents went there, they were able to see the files, the logs and the qualifications. INAB is an organisation that is independent of the Department of Health and I imagine it has a European boss because the ISO standard is a European standard. Why, for the first time ever, would it do this for a private company? It just does not seem to add up. Why would INAB, a group funded by the Health and Safety Authority, go back and accredit a person's work retrospectively? Why not just say MedLab Pathology did not fill in the form correctly or make the telephone call and conclude that it would have to deal with its contractor by itself?