Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have just come from a rather extraordinary meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts where we were joined by representatives of the Health Service Executive, CervicalCheck and the State Claims Agency to discuss contradictions in evidence. Those contradictions have not been cleared up. The evidence given to us leads me to one of two conclusions. Either the Minister is not being told everything or is being misled or else he is simply not on top of this matter. It could be one or the other. The Government must immediately find out what is going on.

CervicalCheck is run out of Limerick and I have spoken to the people who work there. They are good people. I am sure there are issues at a management level but the ordinary workers are good people. Dr. Scally has never set foot in the place and has not met those workers. The head of the HSE met them once and has now acknowledged that he must meet them more often. Dr. Scally has never spoken to the man who is over CervicalCheck. This is the biggest healthcare crisis in this country in decades, but after this length of time he has not sat down with the director of the programme. How is that acceptable?

I do not have a great deal of time for Dr. Scally's report but he was very clear that the provision of documentation was not acceptable. Does the Minister know what we found out in the past hour? The head of CervicalCheck offered full remote and electronic access to the programme's records but the head of the HSE, who was sitting beside the programme director, had never heard of that offer. He thanked him for the offer and said he would take it up. What is going on? All of this information is available but we are four weeks on and Dr. Scally has received a dump of information that is not readable or searchable. Nevertheless, the head of CervicalCheck, whom Dr. Scally has never met, offered electronic access to all this information through the HSE but it was turned down. Some people might say "cover-up" but I wonder what is going on.

Will the Minister and his Government instruct Dr. Scally to visit Limerick and the programme manager immediately? Will the Minister for Health visit Limerick and the programme manager immediately? We now know there will be more than 209 women affected so will the Minister outline to the House the likely number of cases? Will he guarantee in this House that the Scally report will come back in time and the Dáil will be recalled at the end of August to discuss it and commence the commission of investigation? Without a Dáil sitting, it cannot begin. The Taoiseach has given much detail and many commitments in saying there will be no further court cases, but what work has been done by the Taoiseach and this Government with the State Claims Agency to ensure this? I am not seeing it.

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