Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The most important thing is that we deal with the backlog. There is a backlog of approximately 80,000 smear tests waiting to be examined. While the clinical risk is negligible, there are, of course, lots of women who are very concerned about their test result and have been waiting a long time for it. We need to deal with that issue. Some women are getting their result back within four weeks. The average is 15 weeks, but, in some cases, it is 33.

The Health Service Executive, HSE, and the National Cancer Screening Service have been doing a lot of work to try to find laboratories that would be willing to take on additional tests. They have sourced capacity, but they need to spec the laboratories and come to commercial arrangements with them to take on the additional tests. Given the litigious environment in Ireland, among other things, it can be difficult to get laboratories to agree to take on additional tests, but the HSE has identified laboratories that may be willing to take on the additional tests, subject to a commercial agreement and an agreement on liability should there be future claims.

The Minister for Health will be before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health tomorrow when I am sure Deputies will take the opportunity to ask him questions. I am absolutely confident that he will be willing to answer any question he has not answered already. In my view, he has answered the questions already. There was indeed advice from CervicalCheck after the announcement had been made, albeit on the day. I think the email to which the Deputy referred has been published. I certainly heard the party's spokesperson quoting from it-----

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