CervicalCheck Support Group Tells Government ‘Time Is Up’ To Discuss Proposed Court

A SUPPORT GROUP representing women affected by the CervicalCheck controversy has told the Health Minister that it does not trust a government court to be established to examine the scandal.

The group 221+ wrote to Stephen Donnelly today accusing the government of “ignoring” it and “playing politics” with the problems affecting women affected by the controversy.

The group was created in the wake of former health minister Simon Harris’s original CervicalCheck scandal.

The minister submitted a memorandum to the cabinet last month that would establish the long-awaited court to investigate negligence in the state’s cervical cancer screening program. The court was first announced by the government in 2018.

However, activist Vicky Phelan expressed her anger at the establishment of the court at the time, saying that women and families did not have the opportunity to respond to the minister’s decision before it was announced.

Discussions have continued in recent weeks, but a letter from the group to Donnelly today accused the government of changing its position and suggested that it increasingly viewed the dialogue as “useless.”

The group said in a statement it wrote to Donnelly following Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s comments in the Dáil yesterday that the group said it was referring to moves in court and also mentioned a new Cabinet review next week.

“It appears that we are re-hearing the government’s views on the CervicalCheck Court at the same time as the public,” the letter read.

“We are reaching the point where this discourse does not make sense when what we have offered as input and evidence is ignored or talked about about us.”

The group also reiterated that it had no basis to express confidence in the proposed court.

He added that he believed the “time is up” to discuss the tribunal, and that the group’s executive committee would tell its members that it would stop doing so over the weekend if the minister could not provide a basis for the discussions to continue in the next days. .