As a woman, there is absolutely no chance of me not going for a cervical smear test. I believe this reflects the view of the majority of women who are very well versed in the necessity to care for their health and the efficacy and value of screening. The Taoiseach should not repeat that again to avoid answering the questions that have been put. He said it might have been a cock-up. That might be his view, but it was some cock-up that left women without information to which they were entitled, information that affected their lives and the medical treatment they might seek. It was subsequently kept from families when women deceased. We know of 17 women so far, but I dare say there were more. It is quite a cock-up. The withholding of the information was not accidental. It was clearly the policy and the strategy of the HSE to keep it from women and their families. How do we know this? We know it because Vicky Phelan and her legal representatives painstakingly and painfully established the facts in her case via the courts. She is not on her own and not unique.

Mr. Tony O'Brien's contract finishes in a couple of weeks. I put it to the Taoiseach as head of the Government that it is a scandal that Mr. O'Brien will be left in his post for those weeks to sail off into the sunset with a large pension and a hefty gratuity, leaving a scene of devastation, upset and trauma behind him. If the Taoiseach is serious about providing leadership on this matter and reassuring women across the State, he would do the first thing that needs to happen - to remove that incompetent man from the position he holds.

I am sorry, but I have to remind the House again that persons outside are entitled to fair procedure. It is not the role of this House to act as a body which adjudicates.

What about the women involved?

That is what is stated in Standing Orders.

In Ireland we have an 80% take-up rate of cervical screening. I really hope Deputy Mary Lou McDonald is correct and that this figure will not go down. I am, however, concerned that it will and that lives may be lost as a result. It is important that we get across the message again and again that cervical screening saves lives. In the past ten years there were some 50,000 anomalies identified. I will not be told to stop saying that; I will keep saying it because I care about women's health and women's lives. A lot of allegations have been made and they need to be investigated. I can guarantee that there will be a statutory inquiry to investigate whether the allegations being made are true. This is not just about targeting individuals or looking for heads to roll. I have mentioned that there has already been a resignation of one person who is no longer in their position. This is not about targeting one head, another head and then another. It is about the women who have been affected and their health. That is why the first and most important thing we are doing is getting a team of expert cytopathologists, led by the Royal College of Obstetricians, to look again at all of the smear tests of all of the women who have been diagnosed with cervical cancer in the past ten years. This clinical review will be carried out and done by the end of May.