Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate Deputy McDonald raising the issue and the manner in which she has raised it. We did all agree that we would commit to getting the legislation through the House before the recess, particularly in light of Vicky's passing and her strong exhortation that we would fulfil all of the recommendations arising out of the Scally review and the expert reference group that dealt with interval cancer. The report was published in October 2020 and the legislation is in line with this report. We must remember that the report was made up of input from professionals as well as patient representative groups and all involved from a patient perspective.

The report recommended, essentially, that CervicalCheck should establish a process to conduct patient requested reviews of all invasive cancers and establish a standard operating procedure for this purpose:

Patient-requested reviews should only be undertaken following receipt of written consent from the patient. These reviews should be available to all women diagnosed with invasive cancers, including historic cases of women who did not participate in any other National Screening Service or Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists cytology review processes.

I am quoting directly from the expert reference group's interval cancer report. The expert reference group recognised the educational value of programmatic review of cytology of all invasive cancers including interval cancers. The report states:

The Expert Reference Group recognises the educational value of programmatic review of cytology of all invasive cancers including interval cancers. The Expert Reference Group therefore recommends that Clinical Audits be conducted only where either (1) such Clinical Audits are both blinded and anonymised; or (2) legislation protecting the confidentiality of Clinical Audits is passed by the Oireachtas.

Essentially persons presenting for screening would be advised that they may seek a review of their case files in the event of an interval cancer arising between a first and second screening. The Bill now states there is a mandatory obligation to disclose to every patient who seeks such a review of their files and an that the files would be made available to the patients. This is exactly in line with what the recommendation of the expert reference group has ordained. This is a positive amendment and we need to go with it. It would deal with issues the Sinn Féin spokesperson raised at the committee with regard to the patient review approach. It was not in the Bill when it last came before the House. The Minister undertook to go back and has come back with a very important amendment that provides for mandatory disclosure. This is what we are all seeking.

The expert review group went through in quite considerable detail clinical audit as opposed to a patient requested review.

There is a lot of merit in how the expert group has proceeded on this front. The Minister stands ready to engage further with Sinn Féin's spokesperson and others on this issue. We want to do what is best for the women of Ireland. This pertains to all screening programmes. Programmatic audits are about identifying issues at system level and we need to have such audits across all various screening programmes, including bowl and breast screenings, etc. That needs to happen regularly to indicate opportunities for improvements in such programmes. The person who has been screened should have a right enshrined in law to access that and this is what the amendment provides.

See this speech in context