Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is an issue regarding movement from the public system to the private system. I spoke to a woman who had her smear test done privately and it showed that she needed an urgent intervention. However, because she had a test done on the public system in the previous year which was clear, she could not get back into the system as an urgent case, though her GP tried very hard to do so. They would not acknowledge the private result, only the public one. That woman then went into the private system and underwent an urgent procedure very quickly after seeing a consultant. This issue is not isolated to one or two cases and we therefore need to have a broader discussion on it. I appreciate the points made by Mr. Reid. He said that the instruction went out but I do not believe it was heeded by everyone in the system. The responses we received were not good enough and we have a role to investigate that further.