Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is not here to answer these questions. I know he is busy but it is important that the Minister is in the Chamber.

Recently, Patricia Carrick, a mother of four from Oranmore in County Galway who is terminally ill, won her case in the High Court against the HSE and a laboratory. It was determined that a smear test done in 2016 was read in a manner that was neglectful. I believe Patricia's case may expose something deeply worrying, which is a major oversight in the previous Government's handling of the scandal when it broke in May 2018. I will try to explain this as best I can. When a woman is diagnosed with cervical cancer in this country CervicalCheck is notified of the diagnosis and conducts a review of the previous smear tests that woman had taken. In May 2018, it revealed that these audits between 2008 and 2018 had shown that out of 1,500 diagnoses reported to it in that timeframe, more than 200 of the tests had mistakes or missed readings. This is a mistake rate of 14%, which is a phenomenal figure.

In May 2018, the Government commissioned an independent review conducted by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, RCOG. This review's finding differed significantly from the previous audits. It stated that out of a sample of 1,034 tests that it reviewed there was a 30% mistake rate. The terms of reference provided by the Government to RCOG are troubling in hindsight. The Government instructed RCOG to examine the slides of women who had since been diagnosed with cancer. RCOG did not examine all of the slides but only those women who had at the time been diagnosed with cancer.

Patricia Carrick, for example, had a smear test in 2016. She was given a clear result and carried on with her life. She had another test in 2018 and another in 2019, again with clear results. However, she was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. Given that she has won her case, we know the 2016 test was misread but when RCOG was carrying out its review, as instructed by the terms of reference provided by the Department, it skipped Patricia's slide because as of 2018 she had not been diagnosed with cancer. Her slide was left on the shelf and had not been examined.

The slides of all the women who have not yet been diagnosed with cancer have not been reviewed. This is startling. For people such as Patricia, who do not discovered their cancer until later or perhaps where the cancer has manifested itself since, sadly it seems that it is too late. Had the Government told RCOG to review all of the slides in 2018 then issues such as Patricia's would have been identified earlier and, perhaps, the prognosis could be different.

I am not raising this issue to speculate on what is a deep and difficult issue for the family, and our prayers and solidarity go out to the Carrick family. I am raising the issue because if RCOG states the samples it looked at had a 30% mistake rate then are we to assume that the slides and samples it did not look at of those women who had not been diagnosed with cancer at that time also have a 30% mistake rate? If this is true, even if it is a quarter of that figure it is startling information and it would necessitate a radical re-examination of the whole CervicalCheck scandal. I ask the Minister of State for a response.

See this speech in context