Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to express my outrage, and that of the Fianna Fáil group, and condemn the actions of Israel and its use of force against unarmed Palestinian protestors, including unarmed children. An eight month old child was among the victims.The killing of 59 Palestinians can only be described as a massacre and must be condemned by the Government in the strongest possible terms. We call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to do what he can and outline our condemnation to the Israeli ambassador. Shooting live ammunition at demonstrators goes way beyond the realms of proportionality and I ask the Minister to urge the Israeli authorities to use restraint.

The second issue I wish to raise is the cervical screening controversy and the information deficit among senior management in the HSE, evidenced by when they became aware of the cervical cancer controversy, including when the Minister and his predecessors knew about the issue, which I say is questionable. In fact, it beggars belief. However, the Taoiseach was emphatic in the Dáil earlier that he was not aware of any issues with the programme, which I of course fully accept. The Taoiseach also confirmed, when asked by Deputy Micheál Martin, that no Minister for Health in recent times ever discussed or reviewed the progress of the cervical screening programme with senior management there, which in itself, in my opinion, is a dereliction of duty by a health Minister. The CervicalCheck programme is clearly within the brief of the Minister for Health, and failure to review or discuss it over the course of the last Government or this Government raises serious questions about competency. Ultimately, the women at the heart of this controversy must be the priority of the Government. To date, we have seen a serious lack of urgency in supporting them. Some 4,000 women have yet to receive a call back from the helpline. Moreover, six families of women who have sadly passed away and were the subject matter of the audit have not been contacted to date. If they were wanted for a crime or owed money to the State it would be very easy to find them. This alone beggars belief, and the manner in which families to date have been told has been insensitive and cruel. What we need to see is reform. We need to see competence in this programme and we need to see this as a matter of urgency.

The final item I would like to raise is unrelated. It concerns the dangers of cycling on Luas tracks. At 1.40 p.m. today I witnessed a man's tyre get trapped in the Luas tracks in St. Stephen's Green, causing him to fall. Thankfully he had a helmet on and was not injured. I know this matter has been raised before but there is a serious accident waiting to happen. More safety measures and warnings must be put in place to ensure that we do not learn of a tragedy on our doorstep arising from this.