Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

It was set up at significant cost to the taxpayer with expensive equipment and expert academic staff. If all the testing is to be carried out by Quest Diagnostics, then all that effort and money will be down the drain. There will be no jobs for the students, there will be no cytology expertise in Ireland and there will be no backup if Quest does not seek to renew its contract or if anything goes wrong in the meantime.

We urgently need joined-up thinking in Government on this issue before it is too late. The Minister cannot close her mind to all that has gone before and hide behind the independence she has given to the national cancer screening service. Privatising and exporting the entire testing service has implications that are too serious to be decided purely within the narrow requirements of the national cancer screening service.

I do not have time to discuss the argument as to whether Quest's methodology is inferior to the Irish model although it has been claimed by those more expert than I that Irish screeners have double the specificity for picking up abnormalities compared to US screeners. I will not refer to the fraud charges that have been highlighted in the media. These may or may not be relevant, but the argument I am making stands up, irrespective of these factors.

If a rare species of animal, bird or insect was threatened with extinction from our country we would do everything we could to protect it and rightly so. We must be equally vigilant in protecting unique specialist skills which our people need for the future. I am not arguing that all of the testing must be carried out by Irish laboratories, rather that a significant amount should be. The tendering criteria stipulated that there must be a ten-day turnaround — to which the Minister referred — and that the prospective bidder must handle at least 25,000 samples per year. I understand there were Irish bidders that fulfilled these criteria. I have serious questions as to why such strict criteria were set particularly as the McGoogan report suggested four working weeks as an appropriate turnaround time. I ask the Minister to address this point in her reply. I take the point she said that 80% was for the turnaround and quality assurance but I question what part of this is the turnaround and why it decreased from four weeks to ten days. Was this in order to specifically exclude Irish laboratories? Is this decision the precursor of more privatisation of Irish laboratory services? This is another concern. Are other pathology jobs at risk?

Following on from the Minister's own co-location plans which will separate public and private patients on the campuses of many of our larger hospitals and which we in the Labour Party vehemently oppose, there has been more farming out of services to the private sector by the HSE and the national cancer screening programme. In my own constituency, kidney dialysis is to be provided by a multinational company. A sum of €15 million to €20 million has been paid to KPMG to administer the health repayment scheme. Even the letters to patients in the north east whose X-rays are being reviewed were sent by a private firm. It is difficult to believe there was any justification for contracting out that particular job. We are very concerned that this again represents more outsourcing, more privatisation and a failure to trust and invest in the Irish public health service.

I have no expectation that the Minister will share my concerns about the privatisation of cervical screening or of any other service. She is ideologically committed to privatisation. However, I do expect her partners in Government, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, to be concerned about this continuous privatisation within the health service. I expect her and her Government colleagues to protect the jobs and essential skills needed for this country. I expect her to care about educating young people. Their expectations about pursuing a career in this country are being raised only to have the door shut in their faces.

I urge the Minister to intervene before this contract is signed. I welcome the fact she has said today that Quest Diagnostics is the preferred bidder but that there is some time still available. I urge her to consider all of the implications of this decision and also to consider the fact that we have the highest of standards and accredited laboratories in this country. We have trained workers who will lose their jobs and students are currently studying in DIT Kevin Street to work in cytology labs. We are in danger of losing these skills and in two years' time the skills will be gone. I urge the Minister to change her mind on this issue. I urge her to intervene to ensure that Irish laboratories are included in this contract as there is a national interest at stake.

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