A TD has demanded that the €2,000 ex-gratia payment to over 159 women affected by the CervicalCheck controversy be paid immediately.

The Taoiseach has addressed the Dáil and has made a formal State apology for the "the humiliation, the disrespect and the deceit" to the women and families impacted by the CervicalCheck controversy.

Catherine Shanahan Health Correspondent

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will issue an apology to the women impacted by the CervicalCheck programme failures in the next Dáil term.

A review of the latest CervicalCheck scandal has found more than 4,000 women were not given their smear test results due to an IT glitch.

The public health doctor who investigated the CervicalCheck controversy said he could not find any "grace or compassion" anywhere.

An unaccredited Manchester laboratory that screened more than 90,000 smears without the knowledge or approval of CervicalCheck should be the focus of an ongoing expert review of the screening history of women with cervical cancer, patient representatives have said.

By accusing Health Minister Simon Harris of being a ‘little boy’ during the CervicalCheck scandal, Tony O’Brien placed himself in the schoolyard, writes Gerard Howlin

The Taoiseach has defended Health Minister Simon Harris and says the HSE needs to stop passing its problems on to the Department of Health.

Here's your lunchtime bulletin.

Here's your morning bulletin.

It was early May during the abortion referendum campaign and a Together for Yes information meeting was taking place in UCC.

Twenty-four women who attended the cancer centre at Cork University Hospital and 16 from University Hospital Waterford are among the 209 nationally who were failed by smear tests.