Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Most people are still reeling from the sudden revelations that emanated from the aftermath of the very important stance taken by Vicky Phelan and all that has come into the public domain. There will be tiers of questions to be answered but one of the two things that are most urgent and fundamental are that this State would give complete support to those women who are most affected, namely, the 209 women instanced by the Taoiseach. In terms of the package of measures he has talked about that was announced last week, are these measures currently available to these women? If not, when will they be available to them?

Can we give absolute assurance to women who are going for smear tests today, tomorrow and the next day? The Taoiseach again instanced the fact that we will introduce a new screening process, namely, the HPV screening process. Again, can he be specific about when that new test will be introduced? I raised a matter previously that I want to clarify in my own mind so that I understand this. The Taoiseach indicated that the current testing programme has a reliability rate of between 65% and 70%. That came as a surprise to many people. The Taoiseach explained why this is the case and that the new HPV test has 100% accuracy because it tests for the HPV virus but that the virus is the cause of only 70% of cervical cancers. Will the missed rate improve substantially or, as I have read in some publications, will the existing screening continue in parallel with HPV screening to significantly increase the probability of accurate testing of cervical cancer?

See this speech in context