Dr. Tony Holohan:

A number of us were around when the programme was commenced, and we did not have a programme in 2008, unlike our colleagues in England, and in the UK. I can recall the role that was played by the original CervicalCheck clinical director Dr. Gráinne Flannelly, in her engagements with the Department, and in public, in making strongly the case for the introduction of a screening programme. She talked in very clear and passionate terms about her gynaecological practice in the UK, where she had trained, and seeing young women presenting with late-stage cervical cancer, and lives being lost with young children. She was instrumental in making the case in public and political terms, for investment in the development of a new programme at a time, in 2008, when the overall expenditure on the health system was being reduced. There is no question that that played an important role in establishing a programme that has had the positive impacts we have seen over the past ten years.