Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On Sunday, we lost an inspirational woman who showed great bravery and courage in her public fight to take on the health services and expose how she was let down. We were all hugely saddened by Ruth Morrissey's passing. We express our deepest sympathies to her husband, Paul, and her darling daughter, Libby, to whom she always referred as her little butterfly.

Ruth was brave and courageous. Along with other great people, such as Vicky Phelan, Emma Mhic Mhathúna, Lorraine Walsh and Stephen Teap, Ruth shone a light on horrific incompetence within our health service. Those people fought for truth and justice to try and ensure women in the future would not go through what they did.

Ruth fought a long, hard battle with her illness but also fought a long and public battle for the vindication of her rights. One can imagine that it would be extremely difficult for anybody in their full health to talk about personal and intimate details in a public setting, so I can only begin to imagine what it was like for somebody who was vulnerable and ill to have to expose their life to try to seek absolute justice.

Ruth and others worked to highlight the diagnostic failings in this country's CervicalCheck screening programme so that others would not have to go what they went through. There was a litany of failures regarding the operation of the service. Too many women who should be alive today, enjoying lives with their families, are not here because of those failings. We have a duty to learn the lessons, reform the system and make sure those failings do not happen again.

The Government committed to implementing the recommendations of the Scally and MacCraith reports. I ask the Leader where we are at with regard to the implementation of those recommendations. I would like the Leader to ask when the statutory tribunal will commence. That tribunal was, of course, based on recommendations made by Mr. Justice Charles Meenan. The cervical cancer screening programme has recommenced, but only in a limited manner. We in the Seanad need to call for the programme's complete restoration. Ruth gave voice to many women. We absolutely must honour that in our cause to ensure the right thing is done.