Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Donnelly for his constructive offer of support, and I would appreciate the support of any Member of this House in terms of what we can do to reassure the public. I take the point Deputy Connolly makes about that but there are women asking many questions and I want to provide them the right information.

I would point out for the information of the House that a new guidance has been put up on cervicalcheck.ietonight and any woman can log on to that. There is a section on frequently asked questions. It also highlights answers to many of the questions that have been coming in to the helpline. Guidance for general practitioners, GPs, on how to deal with the issue of repeat smears and women who are coming into their clinics, of which I believe there are many, for understandable reasons, asking if they should get a repeat smear test or if their smear will be reassessed will issue this week. Dr. David Hanlon, the Health Service Executive's clinical adviser on general practice, is working with the GP representative organisations on that as well.

I met the Irish Cancer Society today and it had some very constructive suggestions as to what we could do to help provide information to women. I intend to act on many of those suggestions. I will be happy to update the Members as I progress them. I am scheduled to meet it again next week to update it on actions. It can be a very important conduit in terms of providing information to cancer patients throughout the country and to their families.

Deputy Donnelly asks a perfectly legitimate question that I should be asked, that I am happy to be asked and that this House has an obligation to ask, namely, what I did when I got the note. I received this information note, which I have published with only personal details of the individual redacted, on my Department's website. I received it just before 7 p.m. on the evening of Monday, 16 April. I was in a meeting with the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, at the time. I then had a meeting of Fine Gael Ministers and Ministers of State later that evening, Cabinet the next morning and pre-Cabinet from 8.30 a.m. I suspect I read the note around Tuesday afternoon. As the Deputy knows, the case was on the Wednesday or Thursday of that week. I read it about the Tuesday afternoon, so a huge period of time had not elapsed. That is an important point to make. I was not sitting on a note nor did I have a note and days or weeks elapsed.

I read the note, and I have read it thousands of times since, as the Deputy can imagine, because when one reads the note now one reads it very differently from how I read it then. I read the note as stating that an individual patient was taking a case against a laboratory and against the HSE. Rightly or wrongly, I read it that the case against the HSE was likely to be dropped. I specifically read the line that "[i]n its view the case is likely to be settled shortly before going to court", never expecting this issue would go to court. Regarding the section on clinical audit, I read it that all historical and current audits had been given to clinicians for communication onwards to patients. If I read the note now, in the light of what I know, one would read it differently but I did not know about other cases. I did not know about Dr. Flannelly's correspondence. I did not even know what is emerging this evening. I read the note as an information note to me, of which I get very many as a Minister, and not in the context of receiving a note today.

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