I raise the issue of the helpline for the CervicalCheck crisis. As the Taoiseach said earlier, 7,678 women are still waiting to be contacted. Can the Minister for Health advise the House if more staff will be put in place? There is anxiety and uncertainty among those waiting for a return call. I understand the staff there are extremely busy and this is causing huge distress. Can the Minister tell the House also whether the calls are being returned in order of priority or are they being returned by reference to when a call was initially logged?

I thank Deputy Butler for raising this important issue. I assure her that resourcing is not an issue in regard to the helpline. Whatever resources are required will be provided. As the Taoiseach outlined earlier, it is important that the message does not go out that nobody in CervicalCheck is bothered to return these calls. These are calls where women are, rightly, asking for specific information on their screening histories. That information has to be obtained and relayed to a woman by a clinician, be it a doctor or nurse. Often, these conversations take a significant period of time. Even as recently as the weekend, more staff were assigned to the helpline. The commitment given by Mr. Damien McCallion yesterday was that the overwhelming majority of calls will have been returned by this weekend. The Deputy is correct that staff are working their way through this and are prioritising calls on the basis of clinical need and level of concern rather than just the date the call was logged.