Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 14 June 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Implications of CervicalCheck Revelations (Resumed)

9:00 am

Mr. Damien McCallion:

What I am saying is that people go through screening and then up in a diagnostic process. The reference to 50,000 is a wider number. I am sorry. I was only trying to reflect the importance of the testing, which was the Deputy's point.

In terms of the performance of the laboratories, all of that information has been available and will be made available. The committee had sought copies of the contracts as well so we had to go through a process to ensure that we did not in any way undermine some of the terms and indemnities contained in the contracts that could, in effect, impact on the State. We have got an agreement with the laboratories to release those contracts, as Mr. Connaghan said, with some provisos. We will be going through that with Dr. Scally and also writing to the Chair of the committee in terms of the release of those contracts.