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

I also join Deputy Micheál Martin in expressing my condolences to the family and friends of Orla Church. I was filled with sorrow over the weekend when I heard of her untimely passing. I also pay tribute to her and thank her for her contribution to helping the health service to update its guidelines for GPs and others in relation to cervical screening. I recognise that it was a very important contribution which will help women in future.

I have always said, as have others, that we want some good to come from this terrible tragedy and the controversy around CervicalCheck. Some good has come from it. The Scally report was undertaken and is being implemented. We put in a package of supports for the women affected by the audit including medical cards, experimental medicines and other supports. We have taken the decision to extend the HPV vaccine to boys this year and to introduce a new, more modern smear test - one of the first countries to do so - which is more accurate. That will be done this year. Important progress is being made.

We all know that cervical screening works. It has helped reduce the instance of cervical cancer in Ireland in recent years and has reduced the number of deaths. I am pleased that, notwithstanding the controversy around CervicalCheck, that women are still attending for smears and the programme is still working well.

As Deputy Martin said, in May the Minister for Health decided to offer free out-of-cycle smear tests to any woman who was concerned about her health and about the accuracy of previous smear tests in relation to the CervicalCheck screening programme. The Minister made the decision in good faith to answer the considerable fears and anxieties of many women in Ireland who were worried that their recent smear tests may have been misread or inaccurate. In the months after that, there was a significant increase in the volume of women presenting for smear tests. This not only included the women attending for the out-of-cycle tests but an increased uptake in testing in general by women. That increased demand put immense pressure on laboratory capacity. The HSE has worked actively with the laboratories to manage this and to improve turnaround times for smear tests. The HSE tells us that the laboratories have agreed to undertake additional recruitment, to provide overtime and to manage annual leave in an effort to minimise and reduce the backlog. In addition, the HSE is trying to source additional screening and laboratory capacity which would improve turnaround times for results. The HSE advises us that sourcing capacity and resources is a serious challenge as countries start to move to primary HPV screening to the new test, there is a shortage of capacity, not only in Ireland but also internationally. However, they are undertaking to provide that additional capacity and get on top of the backlog. Now that the out-of-cycle free smear tests have stopped, we expect that it will be possible to reduce the backlog over the next couple of weeks.

See this speech in context