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

The most egregious aspect of this whole affair is that important information about women's health was withheld from them, and that was absolutely wrong. We all know that the audit did not commence until these women had already been diagnosed with cancer and were being treated, so providing them with that information would not have impacted on their treatment. However, they should have been told anyway. People have a right to know information about their healthcare. Doctors, officials and anyone else involved in managing their cases or looking after them have no basis on which not to pass on that information. As Deputies will know, this has been HSE policy for all staff since 2013 and is in the Medical Council guidelines. Part of the inquiry that is now under way must get to the bottom of why this information was not passed on to women in the way it should have been as they ought to have known. This is absolutely the most inexplicable and egregious aspect of this whole affair.

As I said yesterday, people want accountability. The Government wants accountability as much as the Opposition does. People are annoyed, and I am annoyed, about the way this has been handled in recent weeks, the drip-drip of information and the misinformation from some quarters. We, as politicians, need to ensure we are never part of putting across misinformation because that does a terrible disservice to the women affected. We have seen at least a degree of personal accountability so far, the clinical director of CervicalCheck having resigned and the manager of CervicalCheck being moved aside and replaced by Damien McCallion, head of the serious incident management team. We have an inquiry that is under way and can get to the facts and assess whether more needs to be done and whether more individuals need to be held to account. As I said yesterday, more heads may well yet roll but it is important they are the right heads and that people who are dismissed are dismissed because of something they actually did wrong or failed to do, having known about it. That is something we cannot say with certainty at present.

As I said yesterday, for me and for some of those affected, this is not primarily about looking for a head; it is about establishing the facts, getting to the bottom of the matter and putting it right, restoring faith in our cancer screening system and ensuring it does not happen again.

Mr. O'Brien has approximately eight weeks left before he finishes his term of office, at which point an interim HSE director will be appointed by the Minister for Health. We are already in the process of appointing a new person to take over the leadership of our health service as the chief executive officer, CEO, of the HSE. We will also put a board in place to ensure an additional layer of accountability between the Minister and the HSE.

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