Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

More than 4,000 women have been affected by the disaster within the CervicalCheck programme in terms of delayed smear test results. Sharon Butler Hughes played a pivotal part in exposing the laboratory computer glitch which resulted in the delay of thousands of screening test results.

She has been forced to break her privacy in recent weeks by going public about her concerns in that area. The timeline with which she and thousands of other women have had to deal is shocking. She was in contact with the Department on numerous occasions from the beginning of the year to at least 11 July. The HSE and the Department knew in April and evidence is emerging that they were speaking in briefing notes provided for elected representatives during that period.

On 9 July, she phoned the Department of Health and was told by an official that the Minister was fully briefed but on 10 July, the Minister stated that he only found out about the issue at about 6 p.m. I understand that the Minister cannot know about everything that happens in the Department as it is a massive affair. However, given the significant number of scandals that have occurred with regard to CervicalCheck and the period of time during which they occurred, would it not be the case that a Minister would say "if something does wrong here, raise alarm bells straight away and make sure I know"? The defence that the Minister did not know what was happening in the Department with regard to this issue over a period of months, while the Department and the HSE knew and thousands of women found out is not good enough. If a crisis had been occurring over a couple of months in a small shop in the Minister's constituency-----