Campaigners 'incandescent' with anger at minister over CervicalCheck Tribunal

Cancer campaigners have accused the health minister of "playing politics" and have written to him demanding clarity "once and for all". File picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Campaigner Stephen Teap is calling on the Taoiseach to "do the right thing" and directly intervene to deliver a satisfactory CervicalCheck tribunal.

Mr Teap, who lost his wife Irene, to cervical cancer in July 2017, said he is both "angered and disappointed" by the response of health minister Stephen Donnelly.

"What makes me most angry about it is the solutions are so very simple, all it would take is a Government with a backbone to implement them," he said.

Mr Teap said those in the 221+ campaign group feel like they are now going around in circles, adding: "It's frustrating, we have been at this so long that we are now on our second Taoiseach and our second Minister for Health and in a lot of cases we are still having the same conversations and having to remind them that they are dealing with real people and families here."

Campaigners have accused Stephen Donnelly of "playing politics" and have written to him demanding clarity "once and for all" on the tribunal.

"We are getting to the point where this discourse is pointless when what we have offered by way of input and evidence is either being ignored or we are being talked over," the 221+ group told Mr Donnelly in a letter sent on Wednesday.

"As we have now stated, on a number of occasions, 221+ has no basis on which to express confidence in the tribunal as proposed at this point."

The tribunal has now been put on pause.

It is understood campaigners were "incandescent" with anger when they recently received a letter from the health minister.

They believe the letter, sent by Mr Donnelly earlier this month, was designed to "rewrite the history of the last few months" so that if the CervicalCheck Tribunal fails or women decide not to use it, the 221+ group would be seen to be responsible and not the minister or the Government.

The 221+ group has now responded to the minister after the Taoiseach on Tuesday said that there would be further movement on the tribunal at Cabinet next week.

The group had made a number of requests including that any tribunal be non-adversarial in nature.

They also believe that women who suffer a recurrence of their cancer should be allowed to return to the tribunal similar to applicants who came before the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation tribunals.

The letter states: "The position of Government now seems to be that it can 'deal with' the Statute of Limitations issue that we raised. That is not what was in the last letter received from you on November 8.

In a letter to the 221+ Group on November 8, Mr Donnelly said on legal advice the labs have to be involved in the process, and evidence must be tested.

"After our meeting where I agreed to pause the tribunal, I contacted the chairperson-designate to inform her that we were pausing the commencement of the tribunal. I also spoke directly with some of you and offered to extend the deadline for receiving claims. The tribunal is not yet taking applications. As such the tribunal was, and remains, paused," he said.