Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I made all of the information at my disposal available to the House in my statement. I asked Professor Drumm to provide me with a report as soon as possible on the circumstances which led to the decision at the end of August to suspend the mammography service. In my comments today I paid tribute in particular to the director of nursing. She wrote the letter to the HSE on 15 August expressing her concerns about ten false positives. She felt this was of sufficient concern to bring it to the authorities and it was as a result of her correspondence that the service was suspended. We owe her a great deal of gratitude because instead of seven we might have had ten, 12 or 15 cases. She was terrific.

The correspondence handled by the Department in the summer of 2005 included communication with the National Hospitals Office and Dr. Hollywood because at that point he was still the clinical director. After this a radiologist was appointed. One of the complaints made was about the lack of a full-time radiologist and the position was advertised and a person was recruited and appointed in the autumn of that year. A pathologist was appointed in Mullingar to also cover Portlaoise. I await a report from the HSE to see what other issues arose.

As I understand it, there were ongoing discussions between Dr. Hollywood as the clinical director for cancer and the management and clinicians at Portlaoise hospital. We were never aware at official level in the Department or, to the best of my knowledge, in the HSE that issues arose over particular mammograms until 15 August.

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