Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach has commented a number of times that it would have made no difference if women had been told about this in advance. He is making that from a clinical perspective in terms of the actual diagnosis of cancer and the response to it, but I suggest it would have made a hell of a difference to the women involved, and to their families, because in not informing the women their families were being deprived of vital information. When a family loses a mother, they lose a lot in terms of the subsequent care of children in such a family and in the duty of care to the spouse of a woman who has passed away as a result of cancer, or indeed any illness. That goes to the heart of this case, and that is why Vicky Phelan fought so hard. Families have needs. It seems to me that the fact there was a deliberate policy decision that, in the event of women having died, the information was merely to be noted on a file and the family denied that information, which is their entitlement in terms of knowing the circumstances surrounding their mother's death, is truly shocking.

What is extraordinarily disconcerting is that senior people within CervicalCheck in particular approved of this policy. It seems to me that someone must have known at senior level within the HSE because the State Claims Agency does not act in isolation. It is a Government agency. It takes instructions. It is under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, yet in recent days the Government has been articulating a view that it is somewhere out there in the ether and that it does its own work independent of anybody. That cannot be true. Likewise, senior people in the Department of Health must have known because it was said to me this morning that there were intense discussions between the Department of Health and CervicalCheck.

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