Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I may be a little out of date and out of practice, but the last time I checked the best scientific evidence was that extending cervical screening to women under the age of 25 would not be beneficial. In regard to screening, one must always bear in mind the whole problem of false negatives, with which people are now familiar and which can cause false reassurance. False positives can also be a big problem, where abnormalities are picked up which look like cancer but are not cancer, leading women to have unnecessary further tests, unnecessary procedures and, in some cases, unnecessary operations. When it comes to making a decision about screening, which is not diagnostic, one must weigh up the pros and cons, which there always are, and the best scientific evidence, as I understand it, is that by screening women under 25 the cons would outweigh the pros, which is why it is not being done.

The Deputy also asked about the review of the 3,000 women in his previous question. It is a review of 3,000 women who have been diagnosed with cervical cancer in the past ten years but only 1,850 of those attended CervicalCheck. Others did not participate in screening. Some 1,600 of the 1,850 women have been contacted with letters asking for their consent to look into their cases. It is important we get consent before we look into people's health issues, files and previous tests. Of the 813 consent forms that have been returned, some 97% of the women who have responded agreed to take part in the review.

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