Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has asked a lot of questions and I will try to answer as many of them as I can. First, there is a real sense of anger and frustration within Government this week in regard to what has happened and how it happened. Irish women have been badly let down. Many feel very vulnerable and very angry about this. I had the opportunity this morning of speaking to the husband of one of the 17 women who died. He is very angry, for which I do not blame him. He has been contacted by the HSE but he needs a more detailed meeting and I think that is happening this evening.

On the Deputy's question, this has been a disgraceful breach of trust between thousands of women and the State through the HSE in terms of the health care they rightly expect to be provided with. We are in the processing of resolving this issue. I thank the Opposition parties for their co-operation yesterday in particular working with the Minister for Health, who is determined to resolve this issue and to put in place a timetable and initial plan to do so.

As the Taoiseach has said, we want to do this correctly on the basis of knowing all the facts we can assemble before making decisions on how to proceed and to change and improve things fundamentally. Everybody agrees now that there needs to be a statutory inquiry into this issue. It needs to be as transparent and as public as possible. We need a scoping exercise to make sure we have a deeper understanding of the facts, what transpired, when, how and who was involved so we can put the appropriate terms of reference in place for the inquiry. It is to be hoped this can be completed by the end of next month. I assure Members, and everybody listening outside of this House, that the Government is determined, from the top down, to deal with this issue in a comprehensive way based on all the facts as they become assembled. In the meantime we will see, I hope, a real sense of urgency from the HSE in reaching out to the women who have been directly involved, and their families, so we can do this in a professional and compassionate way and provide as much information as we can to provide an explanation as to why it will take a little bit longer to provide full facts and information, which will be a basis for making appropriate changes to ensure this never happens again.

Of the 208 women, I understand that 172 women and families have been informed and contacted by the HSE. There may be reasons it is difficult to contact the other women. They may have moved or are no longer resident in Ireland. Efforts are very much under way to make sure all the women are contacted as soon as possible.

With regard to providing medical supports and reassurance, of course the State wants to do that. We have made it clear that any woman who wants to have a repeat smear test for reassurance, or for any other reason, can do so without delay. The State will, of course, pay for that.

The Minister for Health, the Taoiseach and the Government want to listen to the concerns of patients in particular, but also to the concerns of the Opposition parties on this issue so we can collectively get this right, so we can learn lessons from a situation that should not have happened and so we can put new structures in place to ensure it does not happen again in the future.

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