Sinn Féin health spokesperson Deputy Louise O’Reilly has said the women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal are being failed at every turn.

Speaking today, Teachta O’Reilly:

“From the very beginning the CervicalCheck scandal has been marked by failures.

“The scandal itself was a failure of huge proportions and things did not improve for women thereafter as the screening programme was marked by delays and further mistakes.

“Now we have the latest development as questions hang over the independent Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) review of more than 1,000 CervicalCheck slides over how cases were managed in the review process.

“Serious concerns have been raised by some women about the RCOG investigation due to some review reports having to be returned by the HSE to the British team because of apparent inaccuracies or omissions.

“RTÉ have reported that in some cases women’s slides were mislabelled, and other women were told their original slide was not available for review and later told their slide had become available.

“It is not on that such mistakes were made with such a sensitive issue in a scandal that has been characterised by failures and mistakes.

“The crux of the report will relay reviewers found a different result to the original CervicalCheck result in hundreds of cases. It is essential that the scale of these errors is explained so we can see if the misreading’s were within the margin or error, or if they were seriously wrong.

“If they were way off the mark then this raises more serious questions.”