Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2021-09-22
============================================================

Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

The Minister for Health promised the 221+ group he would pause the process of the tribunal until there was an agreement reached on how it would work. That did not happen. In fact, the 221+ group found out in the media that it was going ahead. I raised the case of Patricia Carrick in the Dáil last year and, after I raised it, the clinical director of CervicalCheck wrote a letter to me that was critical of my speech. She said women had not been wronged and the slides had not been misread. I found this extremely odd because Patricia Carrick had won her case and received a State apology. It was clear these women had been wronged.
I then sought a meeting with CervicalCheck, at which I made this point to the clinical director. She replied, "The courts were wrong." There is complete confusion right now with regard to the Government's approach to these women. The courts and the Government are at odds with CervicalCheck and the HSE. We have a tribunal that is being avoided wholesale by the women. The Minister's words today, the apologies by the Tánaiste and the promises by the Taoiseach are in a completely opposite direction from what is happening with the women in reality. Will the Minister commit today to reform the tribunal, make it fit for purpose and finally fulfil the Government's promise to these women?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-22