The drip-by-drip way the cervical-cancer-screening scandal continues to unfold is "not desirable", according to the Taoiseach, who said on Monday that he and Minister for Health Simon Harris "are finding out the facts . . . often at the same time as the media and the general public".
The only way the full details of the controversy can be established "is through the Scally inquiry", Leo Varadkar said, referring to the scoping, or preliminary, inquiry that Dr Gabriel Scally, a former NHS director, has been appointed to carry out. Following that, the fairest way people can be held accountable is "through due process and the commission of inquiry", Mr Varadkar said.
The HSE's director general, Tony O'Brien, resigned last week following several lengthy appearances before the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts, after which Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin said they would back a no-confidence motion in Mr O'Brien. The committee will question other senior Health Service Executive and Department of Health officials about the scandal on Thursday morning.
Vicky Phelan
The cancer-screening controversy emerged nearly three weeks ago, when Vicky Phelan, a 43-year-old mother of two, settled for €2.5 million a court action against a US laboratory that the CervicalCheck screening service had subcontracted to read smear tests. A test Ms Phelan had in 2011 failed to detect signs of cancer; she was diagnosed with cervical cancer three years later. A CervicalCheck audit in 2014 found her original smear test had been a false negative result, but Ms Phelan was not informed of this until last September. Since then it has emerged that test results were misread in 209 cases and that 17 of the women have died.
If the Government had known of the situation in advance “we could have prepared for it, but we didn’t”, Mr Varadkar said, “and now we need to deal with the situation as it is”. The Government’s priority is a care package for the women or their next of kin, he added.
The Taoiseach was speaking at the opening of Le Chéile Secondary School in Tyrrelstown, in his Dublin West constituency.
