False negative screening tests
Deputy Bríd Smith raised promised HSE figures on outstanding false negative tests and pressed the Government on its response to the cervical screening controversy. The Minister said there was no evidence of different laboratory performance, but would check whether the HSE had promised the requested information.
My question is on the commitments given in the programme for Government on collective responsibility. There have been many quotes from Emma Mhic Mhathúna here this morning but one thing she said was that this Government is totally incapable of minding us and that it has to go. I would like the Minister's response to that. I would also like to know what happened to the promise given to the Joint Committee of Health by the HSE that it would give us a breakdown of the figures on the 2018 outstanding false negative tests and from what labs they came. We learned from questions tabled this week by Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett that all ten legal cases arose from tests carried out in an American lab. We need to know where the 208 tests were carried out. We were given that commitment by Tony O'Brien last week. We still do not have the information. I believe this information will show that most of the botched tests were carried out in America and that the root of this problem and of the deaths of these women is the outsourcing of our health service to the US when that was strongly warned against in 2008. The previous Minister for Health, James Reilly, was the most vehement opponent of the measure brought in by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government of the time to outsource women's health. The Government outsources us to Britain to have abortions. Our smear tests are being outsourced to America----
Comment on this
----where the labs have made a bags of them.
Comment on this
There is no evidence currently available to us that there is any difference in how different laboratories are performing in respect of the analysis and reviewing of these tests.
Comment on this
We were promised the results.
Comment on this
On the question Deputy Smith has put to me, if the HSE made that commitment to the Deputy or to an Oireachtas committee it should supply that information. After these questions I will contact the HSE to see where it stands. On the broader charge the Deputy has put to us in respect of how we mind our citizens and how we mind the health of women today, I have already outlined to a number of Deputies this morning the actions the Government is taking to respond to the grave questions raised about our screening programme. However, I put all that in the context of the fact that we have programmes in place in respect of the health of men and women in our country and how they deal with cancer that have worked, saved lives and improved health.
Comment on this
It was Emma Mhic Mhathúna who called on the Government to go, not Bríd Smith, and she did say that it was incapable of minding her and the rest of the female population.