James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The Minister's reply is incredible. A cervical cancer screening programme was piloted in the mid-west in 1999. Either the Department of Health and Children or the Health Service Executive engineered the tender for this contract. Why was action not taken in recent years to encourage, assist and resource the laboratories in this State to be in a position to tender for the contract?

Some important facts must be put before this House. The data arising from the smear tests undertaken in the United States will be available in that jurisdiction and may come under the remit of the Patriot Act. Information relating to Irish women will be in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security to do with as it wishes.

Under the national screening programme, women are to undergo smear tests every three to five years. Given the way in which this Government has been funding the health service, it will be every five years. In the United States, where women are offered smear tests every year, an 85% efficiency rate is tolerable as opposed to the 95% efficiency rate required here. This means we are putting patients at risk by outsourcing smear tests to a jurisdiction in which women undergo tests yearly and where a greater margin of error is therefore allowed.

Deputy Harney observed that several of the State's laboratories expect to achieve accreditation in the near future. Many of these laboratories have leased expensive new equipment but no advice was offered to them on how to tender for this contract. They are not accustomed to this type of approach.

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