David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1164. To ask the Minister for Health the time frame for implementing the 33 recommendations from the Scally Report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21479/20]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1165. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide details of the 33 recommendations of the Scally Report not yet implemented; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21480/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1164 and 1165 together.

The implementation plan for the recommendations of the Scally inquiry was approved by Government on 11 December 2018. The implementation plan contains 170 actions. At the end of Q1 2020, 137 of the 170 identified actions were completed.

I fully support the full implementation of the recommendations of Dr Scally and am committed to publishing a quarterly progress report against the recommendations on the Department of Health website. There has been significant progress by all parties to date and my Department engages on an ongoing basis with the HSE and the National Cancer Registry to oversee implementation of the recommendations.

Q2 2020 report will be published shortly on Department’s website.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1166. To ask the Minister for Health when the two expert reference groups established following the Scally report will publish their reports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21481/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Scally Report made a series of recommendations in order to ensure that all cervical cancer cases are known to the CervicalCheck programme, and that audits should be an important component of cervical screening based on good clinical practice. This led to the establishment by the HSE of Expert Reference Groups to recommend how interval cancer audit processes in the screened population should be carried out, informed by best international practice.

Measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 impacted the Groups’ work and interrupted progress. However, work is ongoing now with a view to the finalisation and publication of these reports.