Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

CervicalCheck Screening Programme Update: Discussion

Mr. Damien McCallion:

I will take the slides question first. I think I provided a report to the Committee of Public Accounts, or possibly to one of the other committees, as to the position. There were a number of requests subsequent to that committee meeting. As was said earlier, of the 118 requests, 109 have been released. There has been variation between laboratories and the Deputy is correct in that regard. In the early days there was significant variation. We have a full-time client services team that works with the laboratories and the solicitors involved to try to get the slides out as quickly as possible. Of the balance of nine, one of those was in December, one was at the end of November and the balance were on 14 and 31 of January. We are working those through. Effectively we are turning these around very quickly. There were delays in the very early stages.