Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Given the demand from many Deputies for answers about a number of aspects of the cervical cancer issue, it is regrettable and unsatisfactory that neither the Taoiseach nor the Minister for Health is present to respond.

Notwithstanding that, more than two weeks ago on 1 May, the Minister for Health informed the House of a considerable additional number of women who had developed cervical cancer but had not been included in the CervicalCheck audit. We have been told that these cases were not audited because the National Cancer Registry had not notified them to CervicalCheck. This in itself raises important issues with the reliability of cancer data. There is a question of data protection concerns preventing the registry from notifying CervicalCheck, but I understand that has since been resolved.

One must ask why it took so long to resolve such a basic issue. We have since discovered that some 1,631 women were not included in the audit. It is estimated by the Department of Health that approximately 20% of the women had a smear test prior to their cancer diagnosis, meaning that approximately 320 women are involved. Many of them will have had their cancer indicated from their smear test but some will not and are left with major questions as to whether their smear test result was a false negative. On the basis of the false negative rate among the cohort of women whose test results were audited, approximately 15% of the test results for the second group of 320 women are likely to be false negatives. Thus, approximately 45 women who had false negative smear test results but who subsequently developed cervical cancer have not been responded to by the Government. One woman in that position contacted me recently and was highly frustrated and annoyed that she had not been contacted. How many of these women have been contacted and how many have had to contact the CervicalCheck helpline themselves? Have their smear test results now been audited? Will the Minister set out the Government's response to the women in terms of the provision of supports and services because they have not heard any information to date?

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