At a meeting of the Oireachtas committee on health, Solidarity-People Before Profit TD, Bríd Smith, said many of the missing slides had serious misreadings.

The health authority's national director of screening services, Damien McCallion, said there is currently a backlog of 79,500 slides, with some samples taking up to 33 weeks to be reviewed.

The national director of the HSE’s screening service will be quizzed today about the 33 week wait for the return of cervical screening results.

State officials have admitted the cervical cancer tests compensation cost will exceed the €32million price of delivering the service but have refused to reveal an exact figure amid claims that victims will use it to increase their demands.

Health Minister Simon Harris has been called to intervene as 88 women and their families affected by the CervicalCheck scandal are yet to receive their medical files despite requesting them.

Health Minister Simon Harris has been called to intervene as 88 women and their families affected by the CervicalCheck scandal are yet to receive their medical files despite requesting them.

The growing threat of legal action and multimillion-euro payouts are putting the future of the national breast screening programme at risk, it has been claimed.

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.

More than 11,000 women have contacted the HSE emergency line.

At least 10 more women have begun legal actions over the cancer screening controversy as pressure mounts on the Government to launch a full inquiry.

There were 649 patients on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards waiting for a hospital bed yesterday, a decrease of just 65 on Monday’s record high of 714.

The public has been warned of flooding across many areas as the thaw after Storm Emma begins.

The flu death toll so far this winter is 24, according to latest figures from the HSE.

Young people and the elderly are the most vulnerable to the virus.

The HSE says hospitals struggling to cope with the flu epidemic will not turn people away.

As a record 656 patients waited for a hospital bed yesterday, nurses warned that the health service could buckle under pressure from the flu epidemic.

The health minister wants heads on plates over the emergency department crisis, but the labyrinthine management structures in the health services may make his targets hard to choose. Caroline O’Doherty tries to untangle a very messy bureaucratic web.

The Health Minister Simon Harris will visit a number of hospitals this week to check in on the number of patients on trolleys.

Health Minister Simon Harris is to visit a number of hospitals this week to closely monitor the number of people waiting on trolleys.

One of Ireland’s leading experts on obesity said he is ‘gobsmacked’ by the results of a ban on sugar-laden fizzy drinks for under-age players introduced five years ago by a soccer club in Sligo.