Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I will begin by extending my best wishes to Vicky Phelan. We all know she is in a battle and we wish her the very best. I also extend my solidarity to all of the women affected, as I am sure the Minister and all Senators here do. It is our job to make sure we do right by them and that we stand by them and their families. I take this opportunity to encourage women to continue to go for their cervical smear tests and those eligible to get their HPV vaccination.

Sinn Féin will support this technical Bill to extend the period during which women may make claims. It is welcome that this period is being extended. However, the fundamental question is why it is being extended. This Bill fails to address that question.

The Sinn Féin health spokesperson, Deputy Cullinane, has spoken to members of the 221+ group and their legal representatives.Their view as to why it is being extended is that very few women have lodged claims. Despite hundreds of women being affected and hundreds of claims being made in the courts, only a handful of women's claims have been received by the tribunal. Rather than deal with the substantial and genuine reasons most of the women have not made claims, we are simply extending the period during which they can make a claim. The view of the 221+ group is that without dealing with the very real issues and concerns, which were not dealt with leading up to the establishment of the tribunal, we are not really making any changes at all.

We said from the outset that the CervicalCheck survivors deserve compassionate treatment. They have asked from the outset for this process to be non-adversarial. I believe we would all accept that this is a very reasonable ask, as were their requests that the State should be prepared to settle rather than contest clear-cut claims and that where possible, the laboratories should be pursued separately. The State should not be using the survivors to do its work for it.

The Minister and the 221+ group published correspondence exchanged between them prior to the establishment of the tribunal. The Minister stated in a letter of 8 November 2020:

I strongly believe that proceeding with the final steps necessary to commence a tribunal is the right thing to do. Doing so will enable women and families who are seeking access to the tribunal to proceed with their claims without further delay.

We must ask ourselves if this has worked. Have women lodged claims? How many claims have been lodged? How many have been heard? Only a handful of people have opted in. That low number suggests that women are voting with their feet. They are saying loudly and clearly to the Minister that there are problems with this tribunal and there were problems from the get-go with reoccurrence, the Statute of Limitations and whether their legal advisers sought an alternative to the courts system.

There is, therefore, little point in establishing a tribunal for a section of society and for those women who were so badly wronged and let down by the State and who feel genuinely so hurt. If it does not have the confidence of the women, that is a problem. By standing with those families, I believe the Government would set up a tribunal that works for them. Quite clearly, with the figures we have, that does not seem to be the case.

As I said, I will support this Bill, as will my party, to extend the deadline for women to make more claims. Our real concern, however, is why so few women have stepped forward to use this mechanism.