Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Nobody, including Vicky Phelan, is discouraging women from getting a smear test using the current system. What we as politicians are advocating is accountability, transparency and reliability from this service. Helplines and general practitioner offices around the country are inundated with calls today and have been for the past week since this scandal emerged.To date, GPs and practice nurses, the primary service providers, have been given little or no guidance from the HSE on, first, how to handle the volume of calls and, second, how to advise and treat patients who have treatment options or concerns. Adequate resources must be made available. I join in the calls for an inquiry to be commenced without delay with the ability to compel witnesses within any of the agencies involved to give evidence.

On a further note, in today's edition of The Irish Timeswe read of a potential conflict of interest involving the HSE director general, Tony O'Brien, after it has emerged he will take up a position within a US pharmaceutical company that specialises in female contraception. I refer in particular to the fact that he potentially breached his fiduciary duty to the HSE by becoming a board member of the company this January while still in the employ of the HSE, and with the Minister's knowledge and consent. Surely this is a bad deal for taxpayers. The Minister has so many more questions to answer and I look forward to hearing him answer them in this House.