Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I said yesterday, the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, wrote to the Minister to outline the backlog in August of last year. That was a fairly strongly worded letter that came from Maitiú Ó Tuathail of the NAGP. However, it does not appear that the Department or the Minister's office acted on the concerns that were raised therein. There are four months between when the NAGP wrote to the Minister and when he advised that he had this matter in hand.

What work did the Minister and his Department do to proactively ensure that a backlog did not build up? We know that on average, the service tests 230,000 smears each year. The extra tests amounted to between 90,000 and 100,000, which is about a 43% increase. Did the Minister speak to the labs at any stage? Did he find out if the additional capacity was going to be there? The Minister referred yesterday to the "Jade Goody effect".

See this speech in context