Ms Lorraine Walsh:

I thank Deputy Donnelly for his comments.

As I said earlier, I was appointed as one of the patient representatives to the CervicalCheck steering committee. It did not come with a set of guidelines but I thought it was to give the women and families involved in this a voice. What happened in October, was that I voiced my concerns to the committee. I had not received my Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, RCOG, report at that stage but had worked very closely with the HSE and was privy to the ongoing problems within it. I brought those concerns to the committee and to the Minister. When one tells the most senior people in the country of one's concerns and one is not listened to, what else does one do? My only option at that stage was to resign as I felt that the committee was not listening to me. What is the point in having a patient representative voicing concerns when they are not being listened to? One issue raised by the Deputy was that the oversight of this has been chaired by the Department of Health. Perhaps it should have been or should be chaired by an independent person or body, that is, somebody who was outside of this issue, which may be better. One thing that has come up a lot over the past 18 months is that women have not been listened to. This has happened multiple times over that period and prior to that. It seems that this is still not happening in my experience.