Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the women and their families for their courage and determination in the face of such adversity. I also acknowledge their representatives who have done some great work on this. When Dr. Scally last reported to the Dáil, he said that he supported the outsourcing of the CervicalCheck screening. Dr. Scally defended the standards and practices in the laboratories that he had visited, which were operating the screening services. Dr. Scally also told the Oireachtas that he defended the HSE reaction to his report and its speed at implementing his recommendations. Dr. Scally more or less defended the entire screening process. When I read this supplementary report, however, I see - by my interpretation - a condemnation of the laboratories and their standards and therefore, logically, a huge question mark over the decision to outsource and rely on private labs outside Ireland to provide the service.

At the time, tender competitions were weighted overwhelmingly in favour of low cost and turnaround times above health standards. In an ironic twist, in 2008 the Irish public laboratory at the Coombe hospital was excluded from the tendering competition because it had not yet received an ISO accreditation, which it was to receive later that year. We found out with the Scally report that CPL, which was awarded that and subsequent tendered contracts, had no ISO accreditation. There were other outsourced subcontracted laboratories that we did not know about.

There appears to be a determination by the HSE and the Minister to spin these reports in a way that takes the light away from the original decision and subsequent decisions to continue with the privatisation of a huge aspect of women's health services. Those of us who raise questions about the decision to privatise the service, about the difference in standards between the service in private or public hands, are often met with criticism and condemnation. We are told we are undermining the health service and jeopardising women availing of it. I will take no lectures from anyone about women’s health services or my attempts to shine a light on those errors. I understand that sometimes cancers may be missed for entirely genuine and reasonable reasons in any screening service regardless of who is conducting that service. It was not non-disclosure or a series of unfortunate events that resulted in tragedy for these women. It was gross and negligent error in the laboratories that should never have happened. That is not normal or understandable.

The questioning of outsourcing and the continued reliance on private for-profit laboratories, when we had the choice to operate a service in Ireland in a properly resourced, high standard service in the public sector does not undermine screening. It is questioning how the private outsourced service has failed women, with catastrophic results.

On reading Dr. Scally's report I believe that serious questions remain to be answered about the continued reliance on the private laboratories. I find it astonishing that a year after this issue erupted, the State has still not fully investigated any of cases that have come to court where large settlements have been arrived at, when it is clear there was a catastrophic failure in a laboratory, and that the HSE, the Minister and the State are not interested in investigating the causes and outcomes of that failure. It is akin to a plane crashing at Dublin Airport and the State deciding that the deaths and injuries are within the norm of aviation figures and, therefore, there is no point investigating.

On the decision of the State to appeal the Ruth Morrissey High Court decision, I would like the Minister and Dr. Scally to stop misrepresenting the judgment and the term “absolute certainty”. It is outrageous that the Minister and the medical colleges are appealing this judgment. It does not mean that all laboratories must be “absolutely certain” that every screening is either positive or negative; it means that the test must be done to a correct standard and that the gross failures and negligence we have seen would not be repeated and cannot be put down to everyday errors and limitations in the screening process.

I will now turn to the issue of the tribunal. If the Minister wants this tribunal to be taken up by the myriad women who are suffering or who have suffered, and if the Minister wants to settle with the women and their families who seek justice, will the Minister give an undertaking here and now to those who are affected that if they settle their claim with the tribunal, they can revisit the case if there is a reoccurrence of their cancer? This is important. Were the Minister to give that undertaking now, it might encourage a huge number of women and their representatives to take the tribunal very seriously.

In other words, if the cancer recurs they will not be blocked from re-submitting. This is important to me because of the frustration I feel about it and I am sure it is important to women outside this House. For a whole year I have been repeatedly asking the Minister, the Taoiseach and whoever was in the Minister's seat to tell us from which laboratories the 221 misread slides come and I have been told it is coming, I will be told, it will be in the Scally report, it will be in this and that. The latest was that it would be in the Royal College of Gynaecologists report. There is still no answer but I know that the HSE and the Department have the answer. I have seen paperwork but until I get the answer here I will continue to suspect that the Minister does not want to give it to me because it will show that the bulk and a disproportionate number of gross errors have been a result of the privatisation and the outsourcing and that they will be shown to have come from one particular laboratory in the United States. I may be proved wrong, but I would like to have that answer.

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