Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have a number of opportunities here, which could not be any clearer. We have an opportunity to guarantee that we as legislators do all in our power to ensure that the cervical cancer scandal is never repeated; to introduce and provide true accountability and real transparency; and to give the 750,000 women who will have smear tests this year confidence that their needs, concerns and, in some cases, fears, have been addressed and that at no point in the future will there be another scandal. It is not only the women and families of today that need to have that confidence and trust but it is our daughters, nieces and the young girls whose mammies are sick or whose mammies have passed. Will this Bill give them that trust? Without the duty to report, I fear it will not. Nobody in this House wants any screening programme to be undermined.

I reiterate we have no issue with this Bill or with the amendments. The issue is with the process and the absence of a statutory duty of candour in the Bill, which does not place any obligation on a clinician to inform a patient of their right to a Part 5 review at the point of diagnosis. Let us imagine for one second a woman being told she has a cancer diagnosis and then imagine expecting that person to be in a frame of mind to request a review without that option being clearly put in front of her. It does not include the discovery of a discordant, erroneous or otherwise inaccurate reading of a cancer screening sample as a notifiable incident. It does not matter how it was discovered, when it is discovered or what difference, if any, it would make to a patient's condition; there should be a duty of candour and a duty to make a disclosure because the patient has a right to know. The bottom line is that this is not giving everyone the right to information, unless they seek it. It does not place an obligation on a clinician to inform a patient of an error or mistake or even an inaccuracy. Whether it is minor, within a margin of error or negligent, there is no obligation on anyone to say anything. "We can be asked", is a very different starting point from, "We must tell".

We have to protect the rights of the patients, which we see being eroded the length and breadth of our health service every day. There is doubt the Minister sees more than we do in his job. That is to our great shame and this country's great shame. When it comes to those with responsibility, it is on them to ensure the patient gets the truth. The burden cannot and should not be placed on the patient to ask that vital question at that moment in time. One cannot expect everything of the person who has been told she has cancer and nothing on the system. I ask myself if this Bill had been in place back in the day, would it have prevented the cervical smear scandal? I do not think it would have. I fundamentally disagree with the Minister on that. I do not believe it would have. Open disclosure is vital. We do not need another system that compounds hurt. We have the obligation this evening to do the right thing and ensure that no deaths, loss or suffering have been in vain.

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