Dáil debates

Wednesday, 6 February 2019

National Cervical Screening Programme: Statements

 

5:10 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I remember a sad occasion I attended in Dublin, the funeral of Emma Mhic Mhathúna.

She was a sword-bearer for the other people in Ireland and a person of great personal courage who, with a very young family, tried to highlight to Government what had happened in her case, and to other ladies in the same position as she who were presented with false negatives and inaccuracies, which led to her death. Nothing - not all the money in the world nor all the talk inside in this House - can do anything to bring her back to her children and extended family. There are others also, but Emma put herself out there. In a way, disregarding the little bit of time she had left, she became a campaigner and an advocate for others. We would do her an awful injustice here tonight not to remember her name with respect and dignity and to say that she did so much to highlight it - more than any politician in this House, ourselves included, could ever do - in her short few months of campaigning, but are any in the Government listening?

I raised here in the Dáil one day with the Taoiseach the delay in the processing of the results which meant that women were put in this awful vulnerable situation that they did not know whether they were all clear or not. We cannot allow this situation. We need confidence to be put back into the screening programme system. There is no confidence in it right now. The exact opposite is the case. To be blunt about it, and like Deputy Mattie McGrath I do not want to be personal either, they do not have confidence in the Minister either. I am here to represent people from County Kerry. Ladies from all over County Kerry have contacted me and what they are saying is they do not have confidence in the Minister or in the screening programme, and I am asking the Minister to do something about that.

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