Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I received their presentations yesterday evening and have had a chance to read over them. I have a memory of this happening at the time. Mr. Casey and I are colleagues and we made comment on outsourcing at the time.

I will focus on what drove the decision to outsource. My memory is that it was a highly politicised decision. The comment that was made by the then Minister related only to price. As the experts in the field, are the witnesses able to advise us of the clinical drivers of the decision? We are hearing that the preference should have been for the maintenance of the service. If memory serves, there was a great drive to outsource at the time, and not just in this area. It strikes me that the then Government's decision was driven by price and not necessarily by quality. What are the witnesses' views on this?

Regarding the deskilling and redeployment of staff, what shape are we in to insource the outsourced work? With the introduction of HPV tests, I understand that fewer experts will be needed.

In 2006, a tender process - we only got these documents this morning - was undertaken by the HSE. It was cancelled in September 2007. The decision was made not to continue with the pilot programme tender and to develop specifications for a national programme from 2008. Presumably, that was in line with the McGoogan report and would have involved insourcing. Have the witnesses any insight to give into what drove the outsourcing?

People from the HSE and the screening programme appeared before us. We examined the documentation from the time. One of the assurances given was that there would be regular teleconferences - it was ten years ago, so we might say "Skype" today - between the Irish and US labs. Will the witnesses give us an idea of the frequency of those teleconferences? Are they regular, for example, weekly, daily or monthly, or are they scheduled as needed? A head is being shaken at me, so I suspect that to be the truth. According to the documentation from the time, there would be regular teleconferences. We were reassured of it at our previous session.

I will be brief with my next question, as I only have ten minutes and want to leave time for answers. Will the witnesses explain for a layperson like me the differences in how screening is carried out in Ireland? We adhere to the ISO 15189 standard. Does the same standard apply in the US or is it a similar one? Does the US use different or similar accreditation? I am not certain about what we are measuring, as we are comparing apples and oranges.