Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The core lesson that should be learned is that politics does not make for good clinical decision making. It is a very worrying development that a gynaecologist has stated that tests have expired and that a diagnosis has been made in the case of a woman whose test results were delayed. The laboratories have written to the Minister to state that they cannot sustain this level of testing.

We need to be candid. There has been an attempt to cover this up and attribute it to several factors. The decision to provide out-of-cycle testing led to approximately 90,000 additional smears over approximately 230,000 annually. That had a significant impact on the cytology laboratories, which were not resourced to deal with that decision. The programme has been damaged as a result.

The Taoiseach referred to the HPV vaccine. It was promised for last September but that target was not met. It was then promised for January.

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