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

I am a woman who uses that service. I can say on my behalf and on that of women I have spoken to that the Tánaiste is not filling me with any confidence. The wait time is now 27 weeks, which, as the Tánaiste stated, is not acceptable. The shaking heads, sighing, shrugging and all of that is not going to help. I asked him what concrete steps are being taken. In advance of making the offer, it is now clear that no steps were taken to ensure there was additional capacity despite the fact the need for additional capacity was absolutely predictable. We got a soundbite but no homework done in advance and no follow-up work done to date. There is no date for the HPV testing and, again, that has been long-fingered. It is another issue of women's health that has been put on the back-burner, which is not acceptable.

On the news yesterday, we saw a young woman who is waiting for the return of her test results. She was told that had she had the capacity to pay, it would have been turned around in two weeks. Is the Government doing anything concrete to ensure that this backlog is cleared as a matter of urgency and priority? What does the Tánaiste say to those women who have not jumped the two-tier recovery bus and who do not have the money to go private and jump the queue?

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