Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Vicky Phelan is a brave woman. She will go down in history as a woman who changed the lives of many other women for the better. She fought tirelessly for her rights and the rights of other women. It is a disgrace that this brave woman was dragged through the courts while terminally ill to fight for her right to the truth. She bravely resisted all attempts to get her to agree to a gagging clause. She never wavered from her ultimate goal of revealing the truth to all the other women who were affected. No money in the world will compensate women such as Vicky Phelan and their families. There are no winners but if any good is to come from this horrific scandal it will be getting the answers Vicky Phelan was denied during her court case. A year later, this Government is still torturing terminally women ill who are still fighting for these answers. If the Government had any backbone, it would ensure that all of these questions were answered and that Vicky Phelan could spend the valuable time she has left focusing on her loved ones. She is a selfless woman who has given her precious time to fight for all of the other women in Ireland.

The 221+ group has a long list of the promises which have not been delivered on by the Government. The delays in implementing these promises are completely unacceptable. Has the Government not robbed enough valuable time from these brave women? We all accept that mistakes can and do happen, but the conduct of CervicalCheck and the HSE, which withheld from hundreds of women with cancer the information that an audit had reclassified the results of their original smear tests, was not a mistake. It was a cover-up and is completely unforgivable.

The changes being asked for would ensure that a scandal such as that of CervicalCheck would never happen again. If this Government is dragging its heels in implementing these changes, how can we ensure such a terrible scandal does not occur again? There has been a massive delay in setting up the tribunal, which will ensure that women taking cases will not have to go through the courts when seeking compensation. Can the Government give a guarantee that the tribunal will be up and running by a specific date because there is a big fear that it will not commence work this year? Further to this, a promised scheme to compensate women for the HSE's failure to tell them of the audit of smear tests has also been delayed. This scheme was announced more than six months ago and it is no nearer to being up and running. This is a disgrace.

Across the health sector it has been one scandal after another in recent years. The national children's hospital may be old news to some but that does not take away from the fact that it is a real issue which has not gone away. Nurses and the ambulance personnel branch of the Psychiatric Nurses Association have recently been on strike. Health support staff were striking today. In Cork alone, 1,000 health support staff were on strike today. I fully support these workers. They feel undervalued and underpaid. When will the Government and Minister for Health finally listen to the people of this country? It is one glaring error after another. One need only look to the position of carers and home help provision, which is in tatters. Our elderly cannot get a simple 15-minute cataract procedure. In my constituency, they have to wait for five years for the procedure. I raised the issue of the centre for mental health and recovery at Bantry General Hospital today. Workers in the centre are at breaking point. Community mental health staff are being withdrawn from community care to fill vacancies on the wards. The scandal of CervicalCheck, however, will never be forgotten by the people of this country.

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