It has become clear that the Government has no sense of urgency or seriousness in addressing the CervicalCheck scandal. Instead of pursuing a genuinely victim-centred approach, it has opted to manage and contain the matter. An authentic approach would have put the affected women and their families first in a dedicated and comprehensive manner, rather than in a piecemeal way involving mere words, but that is certainly not happening. Delay and obstruction have been the overriding themes of this scandal and of the Government's handling of this most serious matter. Women are still being forced to go through the courts to access vital information from their medical records. The essential review of 3,000 cervical smear slides has not yet begun. In addition, the final report of the scoping investigation will be delayed. It is important to remember that the scoping exercise was supposed to be a fast and sharp inquiry, mindful of the fact that many of the women in question will become very sick. As we know, women have died. Sadly, some women are now dying. As recently as last Thursday, Fine Gael voted against a Sinn Féin Bill which sought to make open disclosure mandatory. I think that says it all. It says that the Government has not really prioritised this matter and does not really have a sense of the urgency that is required to deal with the issues being faced by these women and their families. To add insult to injury, we understand from campaign groups that women are not being given full and complete information on how to access the €2,000 assistance payment. We are being told that women are being sent into an information cul-de-sac by the HSE and the Department of Health. It has been reported today that only those expenses incurred since 11 May last can be recouped and recovered, which is crazy. The Taoiseach might confirm whether this is true. If it is true, it means that no account is being taken of the considerable expenses and loss of earnings incurred by some of the women who are at the centre of these cases. Yesterday, I raised the imperative of establishing an independent patient advocacy group, specifically for these women and their families. I am raising these issues again today because I am mindful that this is the last occasion on which the Taoiseach will take Leaders' Questions until September. When will the review of the 3,000 smears begin? When does the Taoiseach expect Dr. Scally to report? Will he recall the Dáil, if necessary, when the Scally report is published to establish the commission of inquiry? When will the independent advocacy group for the women and their families be established?

I want to say again how distraught I am, and the country is, that so many women have had to endure the uncertainty and worry that have accompanied the CervicalCheck controversy, on which the Government has focused significantly in recent weeks and months. This has been a difficult issue to deal with. Like the women concerned, Deputy McDonald and everyone else, we did not have all the facts at the outset and we still do not have all the facts. As we seek to deal with this matter, we are often having to change our response on a weekly basis because of the emergence of new facts and new information. We set up the serious incident management team to go into CervicalCheck. It was asked to put things in order and make sure records were provided to women and their solicitors as soon as possible. We established the scoping inquiry and agreed the terms of reference with the Opposition. That scoping inquiry is now under way. Dr. Scally has already produced his first report, in which he recommended that better information be provided to women when they are going for smear tests in order that they understand the limitations of those tests. A consent form which recognises that has already been done. We expect further interim reports from Dr. Scally along the way, as soon as he is ready to give them to us. He has said he is now content and satisfied with the information he is receiving from State authorities and the format in which it is being received. We have asked him to contact the Minister for Health directly if he has any further difficulties. As the inquiry is independent, it would be wrong for me to direct Dr. Scally to end it at a particular point. We should allow him to carry out his independent inquiry as the whole point of an independent inquiry is that the Government does not interfere with it. This inquiry is entirely independent. Dr. Scally has told us he anticipates that he will have completed the report by the end of the summer. We have already agreed that we will proceed to a commission of inquiry in September. We know it will not be possible to answer all questions as a result of the scoping inquiry.

The agreement of the Irish Medical Organisation is in place to give women who are concerned about previous smear tests the option of having repeat smear tests free of charge. Many women have taken up that option. I think it was right to offer this option. A team from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Britain, with expert input from the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, has been appointed to review past smears. This team has started its work. It might not yet be examining slides but it is doing its preliminary work and terms of reference have been agreed. We thought its work could be done much more quickly but the experts in the field are telling us it will take longer. It will take up to four months. We have put in place a comprehensive package of health and social care measures. For example, over 400 medical cards have already been issued. If Deputies know about individual cases in which people are having difficulties accessing the €2,000 payment, they should pass on the details of those cases to me or to the Minister, Deputy Harris, and we will look into them. According to the information we are getting from the HSE, difficulties are not being encountered. We understand that many of those payments have been issued. In some cases, there have been difficulties with getting people's bank details etc. I ask Deputies to provide details of individual cases, if they have them, in order that we can follow them up. It is true that it is not possible to claim for retrospective expenses. Expenses can be claimed for going forward. The issue of retrospective expenses will be dealt with in the individual settlements when the individual cases are sorted. As we have said, mediation is on offer in all cases. We cannot stop people going to court. Everyone has the right to go to court if he or she wants to and believes it is in his or her best interests. Mediation is being offered in all cases. A number of cases have been settled by mediation.

The Taoiseach has not told me when the examination of the 3,000 slides will begin. I could also reflect on the Taoiseach's confirmation that the Scally report will be produced in its own good time. I am not challenging the process, which has to be independent.

I would have thought that a Government that understood the urgency and seriousness of these matters would give one direction to Dr. Scally and every agency concerned, namely, to proceed with urgency and efficiency. The Government should resource those carrying out the work so this can be achieved. Members will know that the Scally team had great difficulty in accessing information from the HSE in the first instance. I will not revisit all that.

More importantly, I want the Taoiseach to indicate to the affected women when the 3,000 smear test slides will be examined. When will the commission of inquiry be established? Is it a certainty for September? I want the Taoiseach to tell me what he is going to do about the fact that women still cannot gain access to their medical files. I want him to state how it is defensible, given everything that has happened, that women are still forced into the courts to fight their corner to get their information.

I cannot say for certain when the examination of the slides will commence. I anticipate, however, that it will commence very soon. The scoping and preliminary work done by the Royal College of Surgeons and the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology make certain suggestions - for example, that women should be asked for consent. Things were not done properly in the past and we need to do them properly in the future. In that context, it was suggested that if we are to examine women's slides again, they should be asked individually for their consent. It should be borne in mind that it is not just a matter of reviewing their slides but also their entire medical records. What we are seeking for women is not just an answer about their slides but also an answer as to the extent their treatment or prognosis might have been affected. It is a bigger matter than two people just looking at a slide under a microscope. It is probably important to engage women individually, seek their consent for the examination on an individual basis and make sure each woman is briefed and informed of the result of the audit. It is a bigger job than we might have anticipated in May.

The Scally inquiry is independent. The Deputy may not intend to do so but I believe she is questioning its independence by asking the Government to set some sort of deadline. We are not going to do that. We are here to support the work of Dr. Scally. We have asked him to have a sense of urgency in his work. We said we will give him any support he needs. He knows that.

It is intended that the commission of investigation will be established in September. That is, of course, a matter for the Dáil but I believe it can be done in September.

On the medical records, we have set a target of 28 days for any woman who requests her medical records to receive them. It should be borne in mind there are different forms. Some are paper and some are electronic. It is not just patient files. They are held in different places. Some involve X-rays and some involve cytology. It is not as straightforward as it might seem.