Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are at this point that happens on many occasions. We all want to deliver for the many women who have been failed by what happened in respect of CervicalCheck. The recent death of Vicky Phelan has put this matter at the top of the agenda, as is absolutely necessary. The fact, however, is that we have often had issues in this State where the Government and agencies, especially when we talk about the history of the HSE and other organisations, have travelledl part of the distance but not the entire distance. I sometimes feel we do a grave disservice to those people, and those women in particular, in many cases, who have been wronged. We do not deliver what is necessary.

Deputy O'Reilly put it well regarding the crucial necessity of screening and of CervicalCheck. We want people to have the confidence in the process that has definitely been knocked to a great degree. Part of this endeavour, therefore, is seeing right done for those who were failed. It goes beyond that, though. It is also about ensuring that people have confidence in the system. Deputy Shortall put it very well too. We started out dealing with the initial period of the CervicalCheck scandal. What happened is that we had outsourced laboratory services to America. As people will understand, many politicians in here, including former Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, and others, railed against this being done for years. They did that because they could see this was being done not from the perspective of the public and to ensure we were looking after people's safety, but based on saving money. This approach has been disastrous, in the sense that it has brought us to this point.

We are talking about a duty of candour, open disclosure and the necessity of these aspects. We all understand how screening works, that it can be an imperfect science and that mistakes can be made. This point has been put far more eloquently by other speakers before me. The fact remains, however, that we cannot put the onus in this regard on patients who are dealing with cancer and trying to cope with their medical issues. These people are under severe pressure. We cannot put additional pressure on people to request a part 5 review. We must ensure this is down to clinicians and the system. Especially in cases where discordant readings are being dealt with or mistakes that can have a critical impact on people's lives, we must ensure the people concerned are told about this.

I assume the Minister will come back to us - on some level,I think he has already indicated this - regarding how he sees it being possible to find another means by which people will be informed of this type of situation, whether we are talking about guidelines or whatever. It would need to be pointed out to me why we do not just bed down this aspect in the legislation now. As I said, we must ensure we have the entire toolset put in place from the perspective of ensuring we do not allow circumstances to develop again that repeat what happened when Vicky Phelan and others were not given the information they should have. Questions have been also thrown up concerning the anonymised audit system. It has been pointed out that Vicky Phelan, on the basis of this system, even if she got a look at her file, would not have been able to see the pointers to her own situation.

Deputy Cullinane and others spoke about the fact that, if we take the Vicky Phelan case, the system we are putting in place has not actually caught those mistakes in the process. The aspect I cannot get out of my head is that, as I said, we have travelled a significant part of the journey but we have not managed to put in place a process and a system that will protect women from what happened before. It will not ensure that if there is information concerning discordant readings, necessary medical information that these women need to know about, that there will be an onus on the clinicians and the system to ensure this information is given to women to enable them to make the best choices possible.

The unfortunate thing is that at times Irish people are very civil, busy and all the rest of it, and we will not necessarily seek reviews etc. Once again, we must ensure we have a system that is sufficiently robust and that does all that is necessary. I am repeating myself, but I do not get how we got to this point. Working on the basis that we all wanted to deal with the issues that Vicky Phelan and others have put on our agenda and ensure there is a duty of candour, open disclosure and a system to guarantee that everybody, particularly all these women in similar circumstances, would be provided with their necessary medical information, we are now going to put in place a process that will not exactly do this.

Perhaps the Minister will respond to some of the questions put to him, but I cannot get my head around how we would not just deal with all these issues and ensure the responses are embedded in the legislation. We could then do right by those women who have been failed and put in place a system that is fit for purpose. Beyond that, we must get timelines concerning the Coombe hospital and when these lab services will be up and running. Furthermore, we must find out what percentage of lab services will be undertaken there and how many other lab services will be still outsourced?

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