Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Simon Harris have been forced to deny CervicalCheck officials warned them offering free smear test rechecks would severely damage the service — accusing critics of being involved in “revisionism”.

A Fianna Fáil TD has suggested Simon Harris misled the Dáil over the CervicalCheck scandal.

Asked if the Vicky Phelan case never happened, when would Ruth Morrissey have found out about the audit reviews on her smear slides, Cervical Check programmer manager John Gleeson said: "If she had chosen to ask us".

The former CervicalCheck boss forced out at the height of the scandal is set to break her five-month silence next week.

The Government’s cervical cancer tests scandal review will examine serious fears that the State failed to ensure the quality of the labs to which it outsourced services — but may delay its findings until the end of June.

At least 17 of the 208 women affected by the escalating cervical cancer tests scandal have died amid growing fears over the true scale of what happened.