Minister for Health Mary Harney has today resisted calls to resign over serious failings in the treatment of cancer patients at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.
Ms Harney and Health Service Executive chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm have said they were unaware until Wednesday of the review of ultrasound scans carried out on women with suspected breast cancer.
Minister for Health Mary Harney
Ninety-seven women have so far been recalled for surgical review after doubts emerged about the scans.
It is the latest controversy to affect breast cancer services in the midlands. On Wednesday Ms Harney revealed that a separate review of mammography services at the hospital showed that nine women who had been given the all-clear had now been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Speaking this morning, Ms Harney said she would not "walk off the pitch" and wanted to stay in her position to introduce health service reforms
"I've just invited Professor [Tom] Keane to come to Ireland to head up a new cancer-control programme to put cancer services in Ireland on a new level, not incremental change, but major change over the next two years," Ms Harney told RTÉ's Morning Irelandradio programme.
"I'm not going to walk off the pitch. I'm going to see that through. I want to be Minister for Health, I'm very fortunate to be in a position to return to the Department of Health to spearhead reform and change, and that's never easy, and you're never popular when that's happening.
"But in the past we never measured hygiene, we didn't know what the hygiene standards were. In the past we wouldn't have been able to put a cancer control programme in."
Ms Harney said she was "not . . . going to talk about heads rolling" but added: "I think people have to be accountable. There's no doubt about that, and there's a responsibility now for the board of the HSE to investigate the circumstances surrounding this and to account to me in relation to that matter."
Separately, the board of the HSE is to carry out a review of the management of the Portlaoise crisis.
In a statement today, the HSE said: "The chairman of the board of the Health Service Executive ( HSE ) Mr Liam Downey, at the request of the Minister for Health and Children, has agreed to ask the board to initiate a review of the management of recent events in relation to cancer services at the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise."
Opposition parties today secured Dáil time for a vote of no-confidence in Ms Harney next week having called for her resignation yesterday.
Fine Gael said the fact that the latest news was revealed to the women only after a question was put to the HSE at an Oireachtas Health Committee was "appalling". The party's spokesman on health, Dr James Reilly, said that the HSE had three months to inform women of the need for a surgical review but failed to do so.
He said: "Worse than that, the women that are now becoming aware of this awful news had to hear it through the media after the Health Committee meeting this morning".
Dr Reilly also accused Mr Harney of no longer being in control of her brief. "The Minister was alerted to the problems in this area two-and-a-half years ago and failed to take control of the problem and simply passed the buck.
"The Minister should now resign and a full independent enquiry of this whole matter should take place," he added.
Labour spokeswoman on health Jan O'Sullivan said the failures in Portlaoise hospital were more shocking as each day passes and had turned into one of the "most alarming failures in our health policy in recent times".
Ms O'Sullivan said the fact that the Dáil Health Committee was told about the problem in Portlaoise before the women themselves is "mind-boggling".
She added that the "buck stops" with Ms Harney who "cannot simply be allowed to pass the blame to the HSE".
