Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Information is, clearly, part of this. I have already said that it is disgraceful that she was the last to know, as was the delay before she was informed. It appears that there was almost a battle between the doctors and CervicalCheck as to who had the obligation to tell her. That is wrong. It is disgraceful. However, there is more to this than knowledge. Professor John Shepherd is one of the medical experts called in this case. He said he was struck by the obviousness of the abnormalities found on the slide which was reviewed. They should have been spotted speedily. These US laboratories have been used for ten years or so and concerns were first expressed about them by organisations such as the Well Woman Centre in or around 2007. Of course, there will be mistakes. It is not possible to have a programme in which there are no mistakes. Nevertheless, it is worth asking whether we are going engage in a review the rate of misses from these laboratories. Such a review is vital to restore public confidence. This is a very important programme and we all want it to be funded properly in order that as many people as possible might be screened. However, we need to know that the quality of checking in those laboratories is up to scratch and that there are not more things being missed in them than are missed anywhere else.

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