The Supreme Court has been asked to urgently hear an appeal against a key High Court judgment in the case of terminally ill Ruth Morrissey.

A partial appeal by the State Claims Agency (SCA) of a High Court judgment that found in favour of a woman terminally ill with cervical cancer will not include an appeal of the €2.16m in damages awarded to her.

The Minister for Health has confirmed that the State will appeal the €2.1m compensation award granted to Ruth Morrissey.

US laboratory Quest Diagnostics today confirmed before the High Court it is to appeal the landmark judgement in the case of terminally ill Ruth Morrissey who last week was awarded €2.1m.

Concerns have been raised in medical and legal circles that a High Court judgment in the case of a terminally ill woman could ultimately have a negative impact on patient care and in the delivery of screening programmes.

"You have to have that positive mind frame because, if you don't, you'll give up and you're going to let it win, and by God, I'm not going to let it win."

Terminally ill Ruth Morrissey may have won her landmark High Court action and been awarded a total of €2.1m against the HSE and two US laboratories over the testing of her CervicalCheck smear slides, but there was little to celebrate as she left the Four Courts.

Dr Ronald Kennedy was giving evidence in the case of Ruth Morrissey who has sued over the alleged misreading of her smear slides by Quest Diagnostics in 2009 and a different laboratory in 2012.

A scan for Ruth Morrissey may have diagnosed a recurrence of her cancer but a chance of cure is extremely low, a leading consultant has told the High Court.

A competent screener could have interpreted the smear taken in 2009 from Ruth Morrissey, who now has terminal cervical cancer, as negative, a US expert told the High Court.

Ruth Morrissey who is terminally ill with cervical cancer was told to source her own counselling when she sought support from the HSE, the High Court has heard.

A senior medic yesterday told the High Court he raised concerns about the outsourcing of the smear slides of Irish women to US laboratories 11 years ago and warned of "problems in the long term".

A cervical cancer expert has told the High Court it was incorrect to say the cells he identified as abnormal on Ruth Morrissey’s MedLab smear slide had nothing to do with the cancer she suffered.

"It is unbelievable you would not have seen it."

The Taoiseach says mediation is being offered in every single case affected by the CervicalCheck scandal.

Promises that no victim of the CervicalCheck scandal will have to go to court have been dialled back by the Taoiseach.

The couple at the centre of the latest cervical cancer misdiagnosis case before the High Court have described their mediation last week as a "sham".