Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the two new Senators. We often have a few battles here but overall, everyone gets on extremely well.

I echo what has been said regarding this disturbing information dripping from the HSE in the past few days. Thousands of women across Ireland have been on tenterhooks in case their telephone will ring to inform them that they are among those women who are walking around with something that could kill them. The HSE put them in this position when it was revealed that it had not been able to contact all those affected. The cervical screening programme is extremely important. Early intervention, this type of screening and initiatives like the HPV vaccine are vital in reducing cervical cancer rates in Ireland. Everyone now has devastating doubts. There has been a breach of trust yet again. Yet again, the women of Ireland are not being looked after and there are questions to be answered here. I heard the briefing from the HSE yesterday and was sickened to learn that women still are being contacted today. Those women and their families must be in hell right now. Some women still cannot be located because no one can tally their records. This is beyond belief and it appears as though we may not have the whole truth. Women have died.

The chairperson of the HSE serious incident management team stated that 162 out of 208 women affected by the screening were not told that a review had been conducted by CervicalCheck or of the outcome. As a matter of urgency, the HSE must be held accountable. As far as I have seen, the HSE is like the wild west: anything goes and there are no laws, which is unacceptable. The Minister, Deputy Harris, must rush in to provide independent scrutiny in this regard. It must be efficient and fast and an outcome is needed because women are suffering. There must be a reason for someone to make a mistake and there needs to be a better system for concerns to be raised and heard. First and foremost, women must be told as soon as anything like this happens. I believe the Minister needs to come in and address this issue.