James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 32 to debate the following urgent matter, namely the serious situation regarding cervical screening in Ireland and the reported plans of the Minister for Health and Children to outsource the reading of all 300,000 cervical smears outside this State to another continent, causing the closure of all Irish cervical smear laboratories and the consequent loss of more than 100 highly skilled specialised jobs involved in the teaching on and reading of cervical smears at a time of economic downturn; and whether the Minister agrees this would leave this country at the mercy of international commercial laboratories and would conflict with the Dr. McGoogan report, which was agreed by the Government a number of years ago.

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