Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It goes without saying that those of us on this side of the room are equally keen to restore public confidence in the system as a matter of urgency. The measures that have been taken already and the experiences we have had point towards that. We need to see this from the point of view of the experiences of the patients, some of which were successful and some of which were not. That is where we have to deal with the extreme cases where things went wrong.

An issue arose some years ago with contamination in the blood bank. It took a long time and a major effort to restore public confidence in the system, but it was done. It was done because the system was corrected and double-checked in every which way to ensure that people could come forward and totally rely on the product. The same has to apply in this case.

Professor Kitchener said that neither screening nor HPV vaccination alone is enough. He said we need both public health programmes if we are to make cervical cancer a rare disease in Ireland. Will Professor Kitchener expand on that point a little?