James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

On the issue of the published paper by St. Luke's, having spoken to the author this morning, I understand the study showed a 1.9% pick-up rate for high-grade, pre-invasive cancers. When the author compared St. Luke's work to that of Quest, he found that the figure for St. Luke's remained at 1.9%, while the figure for Quest was only 1.2%. They are the facts that have been given to me. I suggest, as we have been having trouble over a lot of facts recently, that HIQA might be involved, as suggested by Deputy Stagg, to adjudicate on the matter and provide clarity. I do not want to mislead anybody and nor, I hope, does the Minister.

I wish to raise again an issue raised by Deputy Creighton and myself earlier in the debate and ask the Minister to give a definitive answer. The Minister must accept responsibility for a situation where a company, which has been reported as being guilty of fraud on three separate occasions, is the preferred bidder in the tendering process. Council Directive 2004/18/EC states that a company can be excluded from participation in a contract where it "has been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authorities can demonstrate". I put it to the Minister that it has been pretty well demonstrated by the authorities in the United States that this is serious. I consider that $40 million in fraud claims represents serious professional misconduct. What is the Minister's attitude to this and can she assure the people that they are not putting themselves in the hands of individuals and a company that we will regret employing in the future? In fact, there could even be litigation involved here.

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