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.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Simon Harris have been forced to deny CervicalCheck officials warned them that offering free smear test re-checks 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.

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

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

Accountability for grave errors is rare but don’t expect things to change any time soon, says Political Editor Daniel McConnell.

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.

The CervicalCheck scandal may involve far more than the 206 women identified by the HSE, the solicitor representing Vicky Phelan has suggested.

The HSE has said it is “essential” that the leadership of the CervicalCheck Programme remains in place pending a review into the smear test controversy.

Latest: Dr Gráinne Flannelly, Clinical Director of CervicalCheck, has stood down from her position.

Senior health service officials have been ordered to identify and inform within the next 48 hours the 206 women who were wrongly told they did not have cervical cancer, amid fears over the fallout from the scandal.

CervicalCheck is to undergo an external review following revelations that it took three years to notify a woman with terminal cancer of missed abnormalities in her initial screen.

Experts tell Sharon Ní Chonchúir everything you need to know about the virus and its vaccine.    

Ministers have urged the Church to leave clinical debates to the experts after one bishop claimed that the HPV cervical cancer vaccine is only “70%” safe.

HSE boss Tony O’Brien has launched a scathing attack on campaigners against the HPV vaccine, accusing them of “emotional terrorism”.

I write following the recent article ‘Smear test screening still out sourced to US’ and wish to emphasis a number of points.

MORE than 300,000 women have had cervical smear tests screened in a 12-month review period, with one in eight scans showing an abnormality.

The Irish Cancer Society is urging full take up of the cervical cancer vaccine when it becomes available to 12-year-old schoolgirls later this year.

THE new cervical cancer vaccine could be lulling women into a false sense of security, a medical expert warned yesterday.

NEW vaccines against cervical cancer have been described as a historic breakthrough by the Irish Cancer Society (ICS).

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern admitted yesterday that he was unable to say when the Government will be able to roll out a national cervical screening programme.

YOUNG women are dying needlessly because the Government has delayed setting up a national cervical cancer screening service, a conference heard yesterday.