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

I am very sorry to hear about Anna and very sorry to hear of her case, which the Deputy has shared with the Dáil. I am very sorry to hear what she has been through. I am glad she is now in remission but obviously the consequences of her cancer will be with her for the rest of her life.

The Deputy is correct in saying that we here cannot adjudicate on the issues she has put forward. That is exactly why we have established this inquiry - a scoping inquiry which starts today to be followed by a commission of investigation.

When it comes to any contract such as this, laboratories must be up to standard before getting a contract.

The issue as to which one comes in with the best price or the most economically advantageous price or bid only arises provided those labs are up to standard in terms of the quality of service they can provide, their accuracy and their ISO accreditation. Therefore, the cost only comes into it after standards are upheld. Cost is not a factor and if standards are not up to scratch, the laboratory would not even be permitted to make it to the final stage of the tender.

I am speaking on this as somebody who knows a little about how these things work but it certainly was never the case that any contract was ever run by a Government Minister for approval. That is not how contracts work and it is not how public procurement works, as the Deputy will be aware. It is also important to say that detection rates are not the same as error rates and it may well be the case that the batches sent to different labs are not all the same.

The whole point of establishing this inquiry is to get to the facts. We want to get to the bottom of this, we want to get to the facts, we want to put things right and we want to restore confidence in our cancer screening. Therefore, it is a specific term of reference of the scoping inquiry established today to, "examine the tendering, contracting, operation, conflict of interest arrangements, performance information and performance management, accreditation and quality assurance of contracted cytology laboratory services by CervicalCheck from initiation of the programme". That is exactly one of the terms of reference the scoping inquiry will examine not just for recent years, but going all the way back to 2008, to establish whether the suggestions the Deputy has made in the Chamber today stand up to scrutiny and are in line with the facts.

Again, I would encourage people to give their support to Professor Scally and Dr. Denton in the work they are going to do in the weeks ahead to try to answer those questions for all of us as soon as possible. I recognise the involvement and engagement of Opposition spokespeople on health in contributing to the terms of reference of this inquiry last week.

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