Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When the Taoiseach said no and no, do I take it then that CervicalCheck, as an organisation, never met either him or the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in four years? The Taoiseach might just clarify. That is the question I am asking. It would be normal for a significant screening programme to brief the Minister annually on the progress of the programme. The Taoiseach seems to be saying that did not happen and there was never a meeting between CervicalCheck and the Minister.

The reason I ask these questions is I find it difficult to comprehend why the acute hospitals division, a big division within the Department to assistant secretary level, or the CMO did not discuss this issue, as opposed to sharing documents on it, with the Secretary General or with anyone else in the Department. Given the reference in the three memos to adverse publicity of the kind that the "screening [programme] did not diagnose my cancer", one would expect such matters would be alerted to a Secretary General in a Department and to the Minister in the understandable expectation that the Minister might some day have to respond to a public debate around that very issue. It is extraordinary, in my view. I am not casting aspersions anywhere here. I am simply stating the obvious. It is quite extraordinary that the acute hospital division-----

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