Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will have to cut my contribution short but there are important issues that need to be thrashed out. I wish to mention Vicky, Stephen, Emma, Lorraine, Ruth and many others who never wanted to be household names but now are for all the wrong reasons. They have made a great difference and I acknowledge that.

On the laboratories, chapter 6 of the report outlines that the US-based labs, Quest Diagnostics and Clinical Pathological Laboratories, CPL, never held the required international accreditation. There were two levels of accreditation and many of the labs did not hold the international standard. CPL, which is owned by Sonic Healthcare, examined 300,000 Irish samples, but one third of those were outsourced to other labs, with the tests being carried out in places such as Honolulu, Las Vegas, Victoria and San Antonio, without the knowledge of CervicalCheck. How can the Minister claim that everything is hunky-dory in the labs?

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