Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to acknowledge the women and their families who have travelled to Dáil Éireann and who are with us today. I also want to acknowledge the many women and their families who are watching this apology at home. Today's apology is important and welcome. A formal State apology is a serious thing. It is an acknowledgement the State has caused or has been complicit in causing, the most serious hurt to people, and it is undeniable many thousands of women across Ireland have been treated appallingly in the last year and a half.

Every woman should have been told of the results of previous audits of their tests. No woman should have had to battle both the laboratories and her own State in court. No woman should have been asked by her own State to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Women and their families should have had access to supports quickly once this was uncovered. Some 80,000 women should not have had to wait up to nine months to receive their test results and many thousands more should not have had to go for retests. No woman should have been shut out of the public healthcare system because, in desperation, she went and paid privately for a test. When that happened, the HSE should not have apologised for any "confusion" caused: it should have been very frank, very open and very apologetic. It should not have taken the work of one woman to uncover the serious issue of many test results not being issued to either the women nor to their GPs. Preconditions should not have been given to that women about what she could and could not discuss with Government when they met.

Dr. Scally's report into the governance failings was comprehensive. It is good to see and I acknowledge the progress being made on his recommendations. However, as the Taoiseach has said, there is far more that needs to be done and I agree with that. The HPV test will save lives and it was meant to be in place last September. We must all work together to get it in place as quickly as possible. Many women who face delays seeking smear tests are now facing delays in their follow-up specialist care and we must all work together to bring those waiting lists down to zero.

It is essential these issues are resolved, that public confidence is rebuilt, that as many women as possible engage in the screening service and that men engage in the other screening services, because they save lives every day. It is thanks to the service of women and their families, some of whom are with us today, and it is thanks to their fight, their refusal to be silent, their bravery and their extraordinary perseverance that we are here today and that we have identified many of the failings. We must and can work together to fix those failings, to make sure we have the best and most effective screening services on Earth, and that all patients, women and their families are treated at all times with dignity, respect and openness.

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