The Seanad heard last night there must be an independent inquiry into the cervical smear testing crisis.
Ms Mary Jackman of Fine Gael, in a Private Member's Motion, proposed that two members of the Royal College of Pathologists in London carry out such an inquiry without delay.
Their brief should be to investigate the operating conditions of Sligo General Hospital and Claymon laboratories, "and the code of practice employed there."
The senator also called on the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, to start a national cervical cancer screening programme, similar to that which has been operating in the UK for over 10 years.
Ms Helen Keogh of the PDs called for legislation to enforce quality control procedures for cervical smear tests. Ms Keogh said it was "an absolute scandal that, at present, there is nothing to prevent people carrying out these tests in their own kitchens . . . Unless there is swift action to control testing procedures, women's lives will continue to be put at risk," she said.
In response, the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, delivering the same speech he had made to the Dail on Tuesday, said the North Western Health Board was carrying out its own investigation and "has not ruled out legal action against the laboratory involved."
He said he was "fully committed" to the development of a national screening programme for women aged 25-60, but it was a "formidable task and must be done properly. For these reasons, it was considered that the screening programme should be introduced on a phased basis . . . and the Mid-Western Health Board area was chosen for phase 1." It is envisaged this pilot screening programme will be launched early next year.
It has also emerged that the 68 test results which were reported abnormal by the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow after Claymon had reported them as normal were originally analysed by experts in both Cork and Dublin. Previously, it had been thought that they had been analysed only by similar experts in Cork.
A spokeswoman for the North Western Health Board said 13 of the 68 smears are being regarded as "the most serious" and the women involved will require new tests and possibly further examination. The other 55 women will be re-tested.
The Minister told the Seanad a taxi service is to be used to take the new smears directly to the laboratory, and a fast-track service will be put in place in the laboratory to ensure the results are "available within a week".
As regards an independent investigation, the board's spokeswoman said the first priority was to reassure the 68 women whose are now being re-tested.
"We will co-operate with whatever the Department decides on this. But we will not be releasing the slides for the moment."
She said as far as the board was concerned, it had contracted the smear analysis to Claymon, and had had no idea that the tests were, in some cases, being analysed in experts' homes.
A spokesman for Claymon said the laboratory too had not known that some of the analyses had been carried out in people's homes.
He called for an independent inquiry into the results discrepancies, saying that slide analysis was "highly subjective."
"The fact that the 68 slides at the centre of current concern were analysed in both Cork and Dublin would make one think that either there were mistakes made in both cities, or that they are doing something different in Glasgow. They may be using more conservative criteria for interpreting results."
He said Claymon was "extremely concerned" at the media coverage of its screening procedures.
Claymon offers several screening services, including screening of blood and urine samples for medical purposes.
