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

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I thank Dr. Scally and his team for their supplementary report, which was published yesterday. It was discussed at yesterday's Cabinet meeting. Reading through the report yesterday, I was struck by the words of one of the women affected by the controversy who is quoted as saying "The only way we can ever fix anything, is by highlighting the failures of the past and fixing them". In many ways that sums up everything we are trying to do, which is to identify the failures of the past, to highlight them and then fix them. That quote contained in Dr. Scally's report is central to this in so many different ways.

The revelations that some of the laboratories outsources slides to other laboratories is serious and unacceptable. It was not approved and it may have been a breach of contract. It should not have happened and it should have been picked up by CervicalCheck's own quality assurance and management scheme, but clearly was not. It is reassuring, however, that the labs were accredited, albeit one retrospectively, and that Dr. Scally says that there is no reason to believe that those labs were in any way substandard.

On the actions undertaken in the last year, the Scally inquiry was established and has now reported twice. Most people accept that Dr. Scally and his team did a very good job. Had we gone down the commission of investigation route we would probably not have a report, and we would be talking about extensions. Dr. Scally has done a very good job in a relatively short period. A package of supports has been put in place for the 221-plus women and their families, including medical cards, experimental medicines and various payments, which now total over €1 million. The Government has decided to introduce the HPV vaccine for boys, which will begin in September. We also decided to move towards primary HPV testing of smears, which is more accurate. We will be among the first countries in the world to do so. Funding has been provided for that in this year's Estimates and the policy decision to do it has been taken.

The Deputy asked about the compensation tribunal. I spoke to the Minister of Health about it this morning. He is very keen to publish that Bill in the next couple of weeks and have it through the Houses before the recess. However, he will require the co-operation of the Joint Committee on Health on this, as in order to get this done in the next five weeks and have it made law by mid-July so that it might be established in the autumn, it will be necessary for the joint committee to waive pre-legislative scrutiny. Both he and I appeal to the members of that committee not to delay this and to please agree to the Minister's request in this case.

The HSE's new policy on open disclosure will be published very soon. The legislation around mandatory disclosure will be introduced in the autumn session.

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