Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is an honour to meet both witnesses because they are fighting for everybody and particularly for women who are suffering and do not have answers or the truth. When Ms Walsh says we must stop looking back and go forward, I know where that feeling comes from because she is surrounded by reports and analysis and even attempts to hoodwink, obfuscate and hide the truth. On the other hand, and I put this to the Minister and the head of the HSE at the RCOG meeting last week, what has happened with the 221 cases is a little like an aeroplane crashing in Dublin Airport in which a number of people are killed and we respond by saying that this is within the statistical norm so we should move on because there is nothing to see. We would never do that if there were such a tragedy, but with this tragedy I am sick of being mansplained to by being told that I do not understand that this is within the statistical norms and falls within the limitations of screening.

The audit of the 221 has gone under the radar. There was a big palaver when the Scally and RCOG reports were coming out, but the breakdown of the percentage is clear in the 221 audit. I repeatedly asked Mr. Tony O'Brien, the Minister and the Taoiseach the laboratories that the 221 slides came from and never received a reply, but it is buried in that report. The slides from Quest Diagnostics in Illinois were five times higher than those from the Coombe and the slides from Quest Diagnostics in New Jersey were four times higher. Those from CPL in Texas were seven times higher than those from the Coombe and even those from MedLab Pathology based in Dublin, an offshoot of CPL, were twice as high as those from the Coombe. The point I was trying to get at is the one that Ms Walsh made with regard to colposcopy when she said it should not be private, but public.