Bríd Smith: Tribunal Extension Is an Admission of Failure
Bríd Smith criticised a bill to extend the tribunal deadline, arguing the extension admits the original act has failed and will not fix systemic problems. She told the House the tribunal and the act have failed women affected by the cervical check scandal and that time alone will not address exclusion, secrecy or adversarial procedures.
Main criticism of the extension
Bríd Smith said the extension is an admission of failure and will not remedy the fundamental defects of the original act or tribunal. She pointed out that two years after the act passed only five women had applied and that the short take-up was not due to COVID or delays but because the scheme was flawed.
Design and accessibility concerns
She warned the tribunal is exclusive and over-adversarial, excluding many victims and families and failing to provide necessary supports or routes for future compensation in cases of recurrence. She noted that 221 plus women pulled out of talks because they were not being listened to and argued many high-profile cases would be ineligible for the tribunal.
State response and secrecy
Bríd Smith accused the State and labs of circling the wagons, resisting progress on court cases and prioritising secrecy. She argued the tribunal risks spending state funds on its own processes rather than on the women affected unless it is reformed in line with the requests of the 22plus women.
Amendments and parliamentary challenge
She said two of her amendments were ruled out of order on cost grounds even though they aimed to widen access to women not included in the 221 plus or AWCOG groups. She questioned how the minister now intends to address those exclusion issues, noting the minister had previously shared similar concerns in opposition.
Privatisation, screening practice and negligence
Bríd Smith criticised the contracting out of screening to some US private labs and said that practice contributed to catastrophic errors. She contrasted screening rates - 100 slides a day in some US labs versus 30-60 in Irish labs - and noted some US labs lacked ISO accreditation and subcontracted work. She stressed the scandal is about negligence, pointing to state apologies and payouts by multinational corporations as evidence that negligence cost lives.
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I don't agree with the last speaker that extending the time limit is the only thing we can do. We could indeed scrap the current tribunal structures and listen to the 221 plus women who pulled out of talks with you minister because they weren't being listened to. The fact that this bill tonight exists at all is in my view an admission by the government and by the minister that the original act has failed. If the act had succeeded in its aims it shouldn't be necessary to extend the deadline. The extension is an admission of failure. An extension in time will not address that failure. It hasn't failed because of COVID or time delays for any other outside event. It failed because the act and the tribunal itself failed the women affected, just as the state has largely since the start of this scandal failed those women. It's astonishing to me that this House passed the original act in July 2019, yet two years later just five women have applied to it. When this act was introduced the opposition, including yourself minister, warned Simon Harris, that it was seriously flawed, that it was exclusive to some victims, that it risked being over-adversarial, excluded victims' families, didn't offer the supports needed to them and didn't allow for subsequent claims for compensation in the cases of recurrence of cancer. The act has spectacularly failed in its stated aim to provide a fast, cheaper, less adversarial route for women affected. The minister's insistence on proceeding with it, despite the concerns of the 22plus group, is an example of how yet again the state has failed to listen to the women affected. In fact, when you think about it, Vicky Sveelan's case was starting today, she would not be eligible to apply to this tribunal. Indeed, most of the household names that we are now familiar with would not be eligible to go before this tribunal. But it is clear that the labs involved have actively resisted progressing cases in the court and have tried to delay progressing those cases. There is nothing, unfortunately, to suggest that this tribunal will be any different or less adversarial. I think this is only one reason why women have failed to seek to have their cases heard there. It is bitterly ironic that in the present trends the tribunal is more likely to spend a multiple of state funds on itself rather than on the women affected by the screening failures. Unless the tribunal is informed, in line with what the 22plus women are quite reasonably asking for, it will continue to be a failure. The fact is that the fears of many of us about this tribunal have been proven correct. It is not about the state making amends to the women affected. It is about the state following through on its apology. It is about the state circling the wagons and ensuring secrecy over its failures. I note that two of my amendments have been ruled out of order on the grounds of costs. Ironically, the purpose of them was to widen and make the tribunal more open to women affected who were not included in the 221plus or the AWCOG groups. I would like to ask the Minister how you intend to address that issue given that when in opposition, you seem to agree with these concerns when we discussed the original act. You shared our concerns on this. I just want to make some general comments on the cervical check scandal. Women affected by the scandal, and some of us who have raised it continually in here, have had to listen continually to an avalanche of commentators and experts, explaining to us that screening programmes are not diagnostic, that they are not perfect. It is perfectly natural to miss some discordant slides. Women have been talked down to, told that they are raising concerns, and threatening the very screening programmes that have saved thousands of lives. If legal claims continue, we were warned that the poor our labs would have to withdraw from providing the vital service. Shut up and move on has been the hidden and not so hidden message. The women affected know exactly what the natural limitations of screening are, and so do I. We do not need that repeated. Screening is not a diagnostic check. There will be natural and unavoidable errors in screening. False negatives can mean very different things depending on the actual smear. Some false negatives are not negligent, and there are different grades of errors in each individual test. I and other women understand that, but we also know what negligence is, and the cervical check scandal is about negligence. That is why multinational corporations have paid out millions, and that is why the HSE and the State have apologised, because negligence has cost lives. The question remains unanswered. How did this happen? From the start, I believe that the contracting out of the screening service to private for-profit labs in the US was a mistake, that competitive tendering for such a vital service was running down domestic and public control labs, and that doing this type of screening was a big mistake. Since the scandal broke, we have been repeatedly told, there is nothing to see here, move on. The privatisation of the screening programme was not an issue. I have had Ministers and the HSE get angry at me at committee stages for suggesting that there are any connections. But let me just recap. At no stage have the State seemed interested in why catastrophic errors made by private labs while conducting a service on behalf of the State, why that happened. That in itself is astonishing. What we do know about the US labs as a result of the last three years is that lab screeners, for example, could examine 100 slides a day, whereas in the Irish labs when we had them, the screening was between 30 and 60 screens a day. Screening is laborious, difficult work, and that is why the NHS and the HSE insist on a high level of qualification and put limits on how long examiners can work at in one day. Some US labs did not have ISO accreditation. US labs subcontract a cervical check to other labs. There were only two sight checks of the US labs in the 10 years by the HSE. The level of false negatives from Ireland that were subsequently judged to contain high-grade abnormalities were astonishing. Quest Illinois had five times a higher incidence rate than the Coombe. Quest New Jersey had four times a higher incidence rate than the Coombe. CPL Texas had seven times a higher incidence rate than the Coombe. I do not believe Minister Harris then and I do not believe now that the entire scandal that has shown devastating effects of the contracting out on vital public services, and I want to thank the 221 Group who have fought to show this up. In order to get justice and answers, they have, despite their courage, their tenacity and their dignity, failed to get justice. And the extension of this tribunal by one day, or even by the months that you are proposing, will not bring that justice any closer. The State has created an impression that this is a compensation tribunal. It is not. It is just as adversarial as the courts. Thanks. Thanks.
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