Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was asked about audits. Since 2008, 3 million smear tests have been carried out by CervicalCheck. I do not believe it would be practical to repeat 3 million tests or recheck them and that may well not be warranted.

The HSE has advised, however, that between 2008 and early 2018, 1,482 cervical cancer cases had been notified to CervicalCheck by the national cancer registry. The majority of those cases were patients who had already been referred for further clinical investigation or treatment by CervicalCheck. As part of the clinical audit process, these notified cases were re-examined and 277 cases were flagged for further cytology review. In 208 of those cases, the cytology review recommendations differed from the original test and what I understand is done with all of these smear tests is that every single one of them - all 3 million - have already been looked at by two people, by two sets of eyes. There is a quality control process as well that does a cycle of rechecks to make sure that the laboratory is up to standard. As I explained, there is an error rate and that error rate, as we know so far, is no greater in this particular laboratory. That is something we need to check.

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