Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have a question for the Minister. I noted his statement on the RCOG report.

I have ideological issues with the way CervicalCheck has been outsourced. I acknowledge that but I also acknowledge that the Minister needs and wants, and I accept that women must have, confidence in CervicalCheck, that it has to be used, that it is a good thing and that it saves lives. I want to get that out of the way, and I am not confused about it at all.

I am, however, very confused about one aspect of the RCOG report. The NHS screening programme guidance for applying duty of candour in disclosing results, on page 6, states: "... sometimes it can be hard for screening services to know how to distinguish between a false negative/false positive that has occurred because of the limitations of screening and a false negative/false positive that has occurred because something has gone wrong". I am curious as to why that "something has gone wrong" has not tweaked the Minister's interest in investigating what went wrong in the labs. Consistently, in the highlighted court cases that we know of involving women who are still alive and women who have died, they successfully sued the laboratories and have been paid big sums, not out of the goodness of the hearts of those laboratories, but because "something has gone wrong" and, clearly, they are acknowledging that when they pay out vast sums. I want to know why the Minister is not curious that "something has gone wrong", and why we are not examining what went wrong in those labs.

I will give a quick analogy. If there was an accident at Dublin Airport and five or six people were killed, would we investigate the causes and what might have gone wrong, or would we say that those deaths are within the statistical norms of aviation globally, Dublin Airport is working to appropriate health and safety standards, so why would we bother investigating what went wrong? I would like an answer from the Minister as to why he is not interested in investigating what went wrong in those labs. It is connected with my consistent appeal for the figures in regard to which labs the 221+ women's smear tests were carried out in. I am curious as to why that does not bother the Minister. He is comparing the results of the RCOG report for Ireland with the results for the NHS. However, the NHS has acknowledged that sometimes things go wrong but we do not seem to acknowledge or own up to it.

I believe the Minister is going to reopen the audit, which has been closed for a year and a half. In that year and half, some women have had serious results. The best friend of my secretary, who works in Leinster House, is dying from cervical cancer. She was under constant screening because she had a procedure in 2009. The woman, her community and her friends have had to fundraise to have the audit carried out privately and it has cost thousands of euro. It has shown that, in four previous years, the screening had serious, discordant results that were not picked up and then, all of a sudden, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. What can the Minister do for women who are caught between the date the audit closed and when it is going to reopen. When will it reopen?