Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

As I understand it, it will not be done in the same way as BreastCheck.

I apologise to Deputy Reilly for calling him Deputy O'Reilly. My very efficient press officer sent me a note saying "I think you said O." If I did, I apologise.

As I understand it, the screening service will be inviting expressions of interest from those who have the capacity to take smears. We must then deal with the issue of the laboratories. Deputy Reilly has made the point previously about the lack of accreditation here. These are the issues being addressed. I hope the Minister for Finance, when he announces the budget in a few weeks, will be in a position to announce additional funding for the screening programme to make it happen early next year. That is the plan to which we are all working.

On the issue of privately funded facilities, anyone can build and open a hospital in Ireland. Clearly, medical practitioners and nurses who work in them have to be registered but the situation is unsatisfactory. We have established a commission, chaired by Dr. Madden, which is due to report next summer. Among the issues Dr. Madden has been asked to address are those of accreditation and licensing. In the meantime we have written to the Independent Hospitals Association and health insurers in Ireland to advise them of the new standards and to ask them to implement them. As Minister for Health and Children, I am concerned about patients, whether they are in public or private facilities. They must be my main concern.

On the issue of basic technology, there is no justification for what Deputy Naughten described. To be fair, the technology in the health system is not adequate. That is a fact and because of the PPARS debacle, technology got a bad name. I do not know the facts of the case mentioned by the Deputy but it does not make sense to send essential data by taxi when it can be read electronically. Nowadays one can transmit data on a mobile phone across the world in a matter of seconds. Many countries have outsourced the reading of X-rays and so on. Modern technology makes many things possible. It has the capacity to end peripherality in the health system. We want to see modern technology used for the development of health services.

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