Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the past fortnight we have, regrettably, borne witness to the fact that the health service is in complete chaos. The cost of the proposed national children's hospital is spiralling out of control and will have serious impacts on other health projects over this year and beyond. On Tuesday, 500 ambulance personnel staged a strike because the HSE bluntly and blatantly refuses to recognise the union seeking to represent members. There is now a scenario where thousands of letters are being delivered to patients, many of whom have waited for long periods, telling them surgeries have been postponed because of the inevitable industrial action from nurses and midwives because of the Government's continued failure to address a recruitment and retention crisis. To top all of this, in the past 24 hours another CervicalCheck scandal has emerged, as serious issues have arisen relating to the screening programme. We have a health service that is in a state of constant chaos, and nobody on the Government benches seems to be willing to accept the seriousness of the position.

The latest developments concerning CervicalCheck will be a source of serious concern and worry for many women. We have been assured the risk to women is low but it is yet another example of the incompetence that prevails in a chaotic system. Guaranteeing free smear tests for all women in the aftermath of the CervicalCheck scandal was the correct action but the Minister, Deputy Harris, announced that move without first consulting with GPs or labs. Ensuring the labs had the capacity to deliver on the increased workload and complete the tests within the necessary time would have been correct as it would have avoided the problems we now see. Lo and behold, we are now witnessing serious issues again.

When this scandal was its height last year and people were demanding information and accountability, the buzzword was "confidence" and we can hear it again today. Building public confidence in the cervical cancer screening programme is necessary as we know screening saves lives. Problems like this, however, rock the confidence of people in the process. We have been told that the Minister, Deputy Harris, was informed in December but will the Tánaiste be a bit more specific about when the Minister found out that the screening was inadequate and retests would have to be done for up to 6,000 patients? Why will it be February before these women can be informed that they need to have another test? That will be two months later so what has the Minister done in the intervening period? Why is it so late in the day while women have not been informed that the information they may have received on their second test - this would have been done because of a potential abnormality in the first test - could be inaccurate because it was done outside the timeframe stipulated by the manufacturer? How can we be assured that this is the end of the matter and no more women will get a letter to the door or a phone call from a GP telling them information relayed to them relating to life-saving screening may be inaccurate? Will the Tánaiste answer those questions and clarify for those concerned women out there that this is the end of the matter, a line has been drawn under it and we can now move on?

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