Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I respect Dr. Scally. I respect the manner in which the Minister has engaged with me on this issue. I thank him for the changes he has taken on board from my suggestions throughout this. However, my issue here is very clear. I am afraid of creep, and to date this has crept enormously. Dr. Scally's comments in the media really worried me, when he thought there may not be need for a commission of investigation. His scoping is very tight. There are ten terms of reference but they are only to find the basic facts.

One of the things I believe he has to do is get the cytology results of the 209 women by laboratory, by date, by grade, by cytologist and graph them and show where the issues are and, basically, put it out there so we can see where the problems are. We do not have time to document all of these poor women's stories. They do not have the time. Remember, these are the same laboratories with the same shiny accreditation using the same staff and quality assurance and under the same tenders that are carrying out the smears now as in the 209 cases, which number, we heard today, will increase.

My real issue is that as long as this creep and this drift towards a longer period continues we will not get to the bottom of how these women ended up in the situation in the first place. We need to get there quickly and then we need an investigation as to what happened. We need to make decisions based on Dr. Scally's scoping exercise. The Minister has to ensure it is completed by August because I will come back in here, and the Minister knows I will, if this is not concluded by August. If I find out at the end of August this has not concluded I will know we are not doing the best for these women.

Will the Minister please go to Limerick and ask Dr. Scally to engage with the people in Limerick and meet the programme manager, who has never spoken to him, which is extraordinary? Will the Minister please get to the bottom of the issue that Dr. Scally has identified with regard to information provision? By all accounts, at the very beginning the programme manager offered him full direct electronic access, so who in the HSE blocked it and why? We must remember the chief executive is on record as saying he did not have a clue this happened.

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