I thank the Leader for responding to my request to bring the Minister before the House tomorrow, and we look forward to a full debate with him. Normally, when a Minister comes before the House, we say we will confine our comments to when he or she is here. However, we see this absolute scandal unfolding all the time, and I have no doubt but that by the time the Minister comes in tomorrow afternoon, there will be new questions following his appearance in the Dáil today, the HSE's appearance before the health committee and so on.

As the cervical cancer smear test scandal escalates, it is now clear this has been a monumental, systemic cover-up. I called it a cover-up yesterday. The Minister called it a miscommunication or an error in communication. What an insult to women all over this country. We now know that at least 17 women have died and hundreds more are fighting serious battles for their health and their lives. The truth is that we do not know the full scale of this yet. We have been given misinformation after misinformation. We need to know the full scale of this. This is why Sinn Féin is calling for the immediate publication of all information surrounding the audit, the serious incident management team and the communications pathways. They must be published immediately. If we are to be transparent about this, this information must come into the public domain. I therefore call on the Minister to instruct that that information be published in the coming hours.

As the numbers affected continue to rise, Tony O'Brien has serious questions to answer. Yesterday, I said his position was untenable; today, it is even more untenable. He is the one with whom the buck stops. He is the one who has a duty to report to the Minister. It will be very interesting to see the correspondence between Mr. O'Brien and the Minister, including the routine communications. Surely to God, people expect the Minister to be alerted to cases such as this. A commission of inquiry must be set up. It must be multifaceted, include the women and the families of the deceased women and have reference to the absolutely disastrous decision that was made in 2008. I want to know exactly how much was saved in this regard. Was it 30 cent in €1, 40 cent in €1, or 50 cent in €1? That decision was made under a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government.

I thank the Leader for responding so quickly to the many requests from various Members of the House for the Minister to come before the House. As I understand it, he will attend tomorrow, and I thank the Leader for his speedy action on this. There will be a time for accountability. As for language such as "heads will roll", all that must be dealt with, but in a timely manner.

What really needs to be dealt with tomorrow - and I hope the Leader will communicate this to the Minister - is the tens of thousands of women between 25 and 60 years of age who do not know where they stand. There has been information in the media to the effect that each woman between the ages of 25 and 60 will be written to. What will the content of that letter be? I note the IMO has written to the HSE seeking guidance on what it should tell women of that age group when they are contacted. Has a circular gone out to GPs in this regard? Will every woman between the ages of 25 and 60 be offered another smear test? If so, has the infrastructure been put in place to ensure that this is done in a timely manner? These are questions I was asked last night in Dublin Bay South when I was out talking to people. They want to see action to restore their confidence in the smear test. They also want to know whether they need to have another test now.

I wish to raise one other matter with the Leader. I have been a trade unionist all my life. I have supported the trade union movement and I believe in collective bargaining. I wish to send a loud and clear message to TV3 to recognise the trade union movement that was protesting outside its studio.

They only want collective bargaining yet the board of TV3 is refusing to recognise the rights of the cameramen, those working in lighting, and the editing crew to union representation. It is totally and utterly wrong for a major television company to deny trade union members professional assistance in negotiating their wages and conditions.

Hear, hear.

I am really disappointed that it has come to the point where they have to protest outside the TV3 studios. I propose a change to the Order of Business that No. 14 be taken before No. 1.

I was quite disappointed with Senator Ardagh's contribution because, to be fair to the other members of her party, they have been fair in terms of getting to the truth and finding out what happened. This is a significant and very serious political issue but it is certainly not a political football. I appeal to people not to use it as a political football. I received a telephone call this morning on which I suggest Senator Ardagh and others reflect. It was from a person who was in this House in 2007 and 2008, namely, former Senator Fidelma Healy Eames. She informed me this morning that she raised concerns about the outsourcing of this particular contract to an American firm on the Order of Business in this House in November 2007, in April 2008 and again in September 2008. The Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Government of the time ignored the concerns that Senator Healy Eames put on the record of the House, concerns which had come from people working in the screening programme in Galway, including, I believe, a Professor Corkery. It was flagged at the time that the outsourcing of this service could be an issue and that there were concerns, including concerns from people in the medical world. Those concerns, however, were not taken on board by former Deputy Mary Harney and the Fianna Fáil-led Government.

Sadly, I also have to agree with the sentiments of Senator Boyhan in respect of Mr. O'Brien of the HSE. I try to be fair in all of my deliberations and I listened very carefully to what Mr. Tony O'Brien said on "Today with Sean O'Rourke" as I travelled to Dublin yesterday morning. I simply do not believe him. I absolutely believe in the Minister for Health and the manner in which he is trying to handle what is a national scandal. It is probably the biggest health scandal we have seen since I came into this House. However, I just do not believe Mr. O'Brien and, for the sake of all the women who have been affected, Mr. O'Brien should consider his position.