Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is very welcome. I would like to discuss many issues, including the national children's hospital and the provision made for it, Sláintecare and the urgent issues of recruitment and retention. CervicalCheck is another large and pressing issue. When we received the further Revised Estimate, I searched it for allocations for CervicalCheck. There are 80,000 women waiting up to eight months for test results and there is an indefinite delay in HPV tests. I expected to see an additional provision or a figure carried forward from last year to account for the additional cytology required to move through this urgent backlog and provide additional colposcopy capacity when the backlog moves through cytology because obviously there will be increased referrals to consultants. I will begin with the genesis of the backlog and the need to make financial provision to address it this year. The HSE says that two thirds of the backlog and delay to the HPV test are due to the blanket offer of the free out-of-cycle smear test for any woman who wanted one. Responding to a parliamentary question, the Minister informed me that neither he nor his officials received any advice against such a decision before the announcement was made. In the past two weeks, the committee received evidence from Dr. Gráinne Flannelly that such an offer would fundamentally undermine the programme.