Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

These are the issues I raised this morning about outsourcing of the smear testing. We know that in 2008, a total of 300,000 Irish smear tests were sent over to the US firm Quest Diagnostics, and two years later clinical pathology laboratories based in Austin, Texas took over the National Cancer Screening Service. These are for-profit companies. There was a political furore about it at the time. It is not me saying that there is something wrong with the methodology, how it was done or how they were tested. Eminent doctors, including Dr. Gibbons and Sam Coulter-Smith, raised these concerns. They raised them at the time and said that this should not happen. As has been said, they resigned over it. That is a serious matter and it has to be investigated.

I commented this morning on the international peer review. At this point the Minister and his team should look into trying to bring the samples back for testing now under the HPV testing scheme that he intends to roll out in October because all of them will have to be checked again. We know they need to be checked twice or three times. We know there is a difference in how people are tested in America compared with here. I call on the Minister to come back on that. It is a serious issue. Although the current Minister for Health was not the Minister with responsibility for health at the time, he is now the Minister for Health and he must deal with these issues.

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