Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have the date on the letter, but I am informed that my Department was first made aware on 6 April. I expect my Department to provide the Deputy will all relevant dates tomorrow at the Oireachtas committee meeting, but 6 April was the date on which my officials tell me that the Department was first made aware. On the evening of 16 April, the note to which the Deputy refers, arrived to me.

What Dr. Coffey is saying or is alleged to have said is that it was not a patient safety incident but rather one related to the known limitations of screening. He goes on to point out that the current primary screening test used by CervicalCheck is a cytology test which can have low sensitivity and which produces a not insignificant number of false negative results. It was certainly the view in the note, based on the fact that it was an individual case, that, sadly, sometimes our screening programme could produce false negatives. That is certainly how I read it. Obviously, knowing what we now know-----

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