Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The reason I think this is important, and it is probably the reason our engagement initiated in the first instance, relates to a statement I made in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago. We might park the issue of the margin of error to one side because I understand that is a natural part of the process. The State has acknowledged there is another section of women, outside of the margin of error, whose cases should have been picked up. The reason I raise this issue is that some of those women will not have a look-back until they are diagnosed with cancer, such as Patricia Carrick. For those women, it may be too late to carry out the necessary treatment to protect their lives. I suggested we would take a sample of those asymptomatic women and determine whether there are mistaken readings. "Missed opportunities", "mistaken readings", "red lights": these are not my words but those of the doctors who have given evidence in court cases relating to the matter. If we take the decision that there is not a problem here and that the Government is not wrong, we will not take that step to check those asymptomatic women and we may not understand how big their problem is.