Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The truth is that we do not yet know fully what happened and why. We do not yet know the full consequences in terms of the number of women who were given false negative results when, in all reason, they should not have been, but the relevant experts are compiling their work and we will know the answers to these questions at that point. Then effective accountability can be applied at all of the levels of the health care system, which I mentioned earlier.

We will also know more about how the response to aspects of this crisis were handled by the HSE, including the appropriate briefing of the Minister and her officials in a matter of the utmost public concern. The board of the HSE is rightly organising an independent, external review of aspects of the handling that, I must confess, are difficult to understand. However, when it comes to establishing responsibility for what happened——

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