I ask every Member involved to be conscious of the allocated time.

As we know, BreastCheck, which was introduced 18 years ago, has had a massive impact. It has saved many thousands of women's lives and it has been independently and internationally verified as one of the best screening programmes in the world. In the report for 2015-16, it is stated 198,000 women were offered screening and 146,000 took up the offer. This is an uptake of 74.7%, which is the highest uptake to date. In 2015–16, 986 cancers were detected, thereby giving a better outcome to those who used the service in that year.

BreastCheck costs €30 million per year to run. This is money incredibly well spent. It was described yesterday at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health as one of the best parts of our health service. At the hearing yesterday, however, doubt was cast on its future. The national clinical director of BreastCheck, Professor O'Doherty, said that since the CervicalCheck scandal broke in the media, BreastCheck has received 15 solicitors' letters. This is extraordinary for a service that, until a fortnight ago, used to receive one or two per year. Professor O'Doherty is genuinely worried that if these cases are successful, it could absorb all the money from the programme and may end up jeopardising it altogether. She mentioned legal costs of tens of millions of euro. She said the taxpayer will require the stopping of the screening programme, which would mean women would die unnecessarily from breast cancer. As I stated, in one year 986 cancers were detected.

Is the Tánaiste aware of Professor O'Doherty's comments yesterday? Has the Government a plan to deal with this challenge to BreastCheck? Can the Tánaiste state today that the Government is fully supportive of the BreastCheck programme and that it will give its full support to the management of the programme to ensure its continued success, particularly in the face of this challenge?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue in such a positive way. I reassure the House that the Government recognises the value of BreastCheck and the importance for Irish women of its continued success. BreastCheck is the national breast screening programme and it offers screening mammograms every two years to eligible women. It has been running since 2000 and since then has performed more than 1.5 million mammograms and has diagnosed more than 11,500 cancers. It has saved thousands of lives and continues to do so. Therefore, the issues raised yesterday must be noted by the Government. We need to remind people, however, just how important BreastCheck and other screening programmes are. Screening is not diagnosis but it is certainly a way of finding and exposing early signs of the onset of cancer, thereby allowing for early treatment that can save lives.

It is important to reinforce the point that BreastCheck statistics are impressive by international standards. The programme is working. We need to learn lessons from recent weeks regarding the obligation of the State to ensure that information flow is appropriate and proper and that women can gain access to information when they want it. I understand that the comments made on BreastCheck have been reassuring in terms of the commitments made and the lessons learned.

On the legal issues that are of concern, the Taoiseach has set up a working group to examine tort law in respect of medical litigation. We will, of course, await the outcome of the review. We have asked Dr. Scally to examine our screening programmes generally, in addition to CervicalCheck, in his work to ensure we correct the wrongs of the past in regard to CervicalCheck and the information flow that should have happened but did not.

I wish to provide reassurance that, as far as we can see, BreastCheck is performing really well and saving lives, and it will continue to do so. The reviews of disclosure that are taking place will, of course, ensure we learn lessons from the past and that women have information available to them to which they are entitled.

As I stated, BreastCheck has been independently and internationally verified as one of the two best screening programmes in the world. Everyone can have full confidence in it as a screening programme, as the Tánaiste said, but information needs to be given to the public generally on what screening programmes are and do and their limitations. That information may help to avoid some of the legal confusion.

The Tánaiste referred to open disclosure. It has been the informal policy of the HSE since 2013 to have open disclosure. It will be 2019, however, before it is rolled out in BreastCheck. Could the Tánaiste comment on that? Could he guarantee that there are no other underlying issues concerning any of the other screening programmes? Could he confirm that the Government is on top of this issue and not addressing it in the way it addressed the CervicalCheck issue when it first broke? Could he confirm that the Government will not be caught blind once again because being caught blind would undermine the confidence in the delivery of the programme?

As the Deputy noted, BreastCheck is currently working on an open disclosure policy, to be introduced next year. BreastCheck advised that the NHS breast screening programme introduced open disclosure on a formal basis in the spring of last year. We are learning lessons from that. I believe England is the only country in the world providing open disclosure at that level on the back of all its systems linked to screening. I am open to correction on that but it is my understanding.

BreastCheck will be examined as part of the Scally inquiry, which is expected to report by the end of next month. As we have said, BreastCheck indicated yesterday that it has received 15 solicitors' letters in the past fortnight and is concerned about the impact of legal action on the future of the programme. Let us not forget, however, that a breast cancer diagnosis is the most common cancer diagnosis for women in Ireland. Therefore, the screening programme is very valuable and needs to be protected. If necessary, we need to continue to improve it as we learn lessons.