Mr. Damien McCallion:

Absolutely. Women are entitled to the slides and the purpose of the team in the HSE is to ensure they will receive their slides and records, whether from hospitals, screening services or the laboratories. In the outlying cases where it takes an inordinate amount of time, it is not acceptable and we have put a process in place to ensure it will not happen with the laboratories and to try to minimise the delays. Some have been turned around very quickly.

There is one other point which is probably relevant. In any case where a legal action is pending or someone is known to be in a serious health condition, we have absolutely sat on whoever needs to be sat on to ensure the slides are released. The requests have all been met within the timeframes.