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

Not to the women, yes. However, all clinicians - all doctors, rather - received those letters through the course of 2016. Therefore, there was a delay. The delay was at the request of one or two of the laboratories which expressed concerns. The HSE sought legal advice and was advised that it was free to continue with open disclosure. It sent the letters out about all 209 women to all the consultants over the summer. The HSE and departmental officials wrongly assumed that the information had been passed on to the women. We now know it was only passed on to a quarter of the women. That is the explanation that I am being given but those officials will be before the Joint Committee on Health tomorrow and before the Committee of Public Accounts and will give explanations for themselves.

As far as the Government is concerned, one point on which I agree with Deputy Micheál Martin is that when I look at those documents, I see the absence of concern for patients. I can understand why CervicalCheck, officials of a previous Department of mine or anyone would be concerned about damage to the programme because that is what has happened. We have a big concern that women may not go for smears now because of the damage that has been done to confidence in screenings. I can understand why they had a concern for reputational damage to CervicalCheck because CervicalCheck saves lives, but what I do not understand is the absence of any concern or care for the women and their families who were going to find out about this in the way they have.

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