Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Clare Daly covered many of the points I was going to raise, but I wish to discuss the court case of Limerick woman Ruth Morrissey who is suing the HSE and two laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and MedLab Pathology. It is a scandal that she has ended up in court. The Government gave a commitment that no woman would have to go to court over the cervical cancer scandal, yet here we see another case. This issue must be addressed quickly in order that no other woman will have to go to court and we can avoid being back here in two months' time saying, "No other woman should have to go to court" again.

Last May the HSE confirmed that 208 women who had been diagnosed with cervical cancer had earlier been given the all clear incorrectly. That situation was compounded by the fact that, even though the HSE had become aware of the false negatives in 2014 when it audited its test results for women who had developed cancer after being given the all clear, it did not automatically tell all women that their smear test results had been incorrect.

A number of gynaecologists and healthcare staff warned the Government a decade ago about moving testing to private companies overseas, as they feared that incidents of cancer would be missed. Dr. David Gibbons resigned his position on the quality assurance committee of the cervical screening programme after his warnings had been ignored. He made a point about the difference between checks in America and checks in Ireland. Many people shared the serious concerns raised.

Dr. Scally stated in his report that, although there were shocking failures, they were not in the screening process. He went on at some length in defence of the programme and to assure people that the laboratories where the tests had been conducted were operating to the highest standards. I accept his point, although there are still questions to be answered and he is reviewing some of the tests. As the Minister stated, there will be a supplementary report on certain further aspects of the laboratories.

Is the Minister proposing that cytology services be brought back into the public domain? There are question marks over the ethos of private companies and how they do their jobs, but I have seen no evidence that indicates that they are riskier or more dangerous.

I will finish on my main point which has to do with mandatory open disclosure. The introduction of this requirement must happy more quickly. As Deputy Clare Daly rightly stated, there was an opportunity in 2017, but we missed it because the Government and Fianna Fáil came together. We are still waiting for that requirement to be introduced. It is crucial that there be mandatory open disclosure.

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