Dr. Colm Henry:

Deputy Kelly asked about restarting audits. Audits of interval cancers of all three cancer screening programmes are just one component of a broad quality assurance programme. We note Dr. Scally's endorsement and his encouragement to people to partake in the programmes. They are population based and it is very important that people continue to attend in order that the programmes can reach their stated purpose of detecting cancer earlier and reducing cancer morbidity.

We also note that Dr. Scally stated the audit where this all began was flawed in its design and implementation. It is very important for us that when we restart the process of audit, we get the design absolutely right from the outset for all three cancer screening programmes and not just for cervical screening. We have secured a chairperson and a group. The chairperson is a prominent cancer specialist who has worked in Canada and in Ireland. I expect that she will start her work in the near future. Our aim is to establish principles for audit in all three cancer screening programmes that are robust and patient-centred and which address the flaws that were shown by the cervical screening controversy and through the Scally report.