Mr. Damien McCallion:

We have received 11,982 calls, 3,832 of which were dealt with immediately at the point of contact in our centre in Cork. The figures are contained in the daily reports. We triaged the 8,150 women who requested a callback into three categories: those who had a normal smear history; those who have had contact with colposcopy services; and those who have had an abnormal smear history. Those calls are then moved to a number of different centres. As of yesterday evening, 4,501 women were awaiting a callback. It was clear to us last weekend that we would not get through this quickly with the resources and process we had. We set up a centre in Waterford which solely deals with those who have had a normal smear history. Such women still need reassurance and many will have questions and need advice from a person with a clinical background. The second group, those who have had an abnormal smear history, need to talk to someone who has access to the cancer screening system. Two centres to cater for that group have been set up in Dublin and Limerick. The final group, who are probably those with the most questions, are those already in contact with the colposcopy service or who have some form of cancer. We put a system in place with the hospitals such that the colposcopy units are now working with us to contact those women directly. In many cases the units' staff know the women and will be able to give reassurance much more quickly than an operator at a central point who does not know the person could. It also provides access to a pool of specialised resources that would be impossible to try to pull into a small number of sites. As of yesterday, we had dealt with 1,000 callbacks. Prior to last weekend, we had dealt with a number in the low hundreds. Approximately 500 were dealt with on Saturday, 550 on Sunday and 700 on Monday. The numbers are increasing. We are not being absolute in terms of a final point because calls are still coming in. The number of calls varies; there was a low number on Monday and slightly more calls yesterday. That can sometimes be determined by the discussions going on around the cervical screening programme.

The point was made that the calls with women who have had an abnormal history or were in contact with services take time. I have talked to some of the nurses and doctors staffing the helpline and we must give people time to deal with the calls. We have ramped up resources such that we have probably got over 60 to 70 people at different times of the day working through these calls. We must bear in mind that a colposcopy or cancer nurse or a doctor is required to deal with those women who have had contact with the service and we are drawing on the system to try to maximise that. The people who have a normal smear history simply want to talk to someone who has a clinical background and can explain things to them in language that gives them a degree of reassurance. We are continuing to try to get communications out through social media and other channels to give them some level of reassurance to those who have a normal smear history but in the current environment I expect that we will receive a significant number of calls this week.