Debate contribution: Cervical Screening Scandal Inquiry

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 3 November 2025.

MLA

Mrs Linda Dillon

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

3 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Cervical Screening Scandal Inquiry

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5213606

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the proposer of the motion and the proposer of the amendment for bringing the issue to the Floor today. I wish that we were not, but it is devastating to be standing here once again talking about another failure in women's health. Time and again, we are in the Chamber dealing with crises that have impacted on women and with preventable failures that have cost lives and eroded trust. That is not accidental. It is systematic discrimination, institutional misogyny and a deep-rooted failure to value women's health equally and to listen to women and to act when they raise concerns. It is a form of oppression that has been embedded in our systems for far too long. As Audre Lorde, writer, poet and civil rights activist, once said:

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

For women, simply demanding to be heard, to be treated with dignity and to have their health taken seriously has become an act of resistance. On that basis, I support the motion and the amendment. I acknowledge, as previous Members who have spoken did, the women and families who have been directly impacted on by the cervical screening failures in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. For too many, the review came too late. Lives were changed, and lives were lost. Again, I pay tribute to the Ladies with Letters campaigners, and all those whom they support, who have fought tirelessly for the truth, transparency and accountability that Members have talked about. They have carried the weight of those failures with courage and dignity, and they deserve answers. As the motion states:

"The lack of transparency, delay and slow pace of the investigations"

by the Department and the trust have been deeply concerning. Women have again been left waiting for information, reassurance and leadership on the issue. That is unacceptable. We still await the outcomes of the three reports. It is probably a positive thing that we will hopefully get them together and thus be able to look at everything in the round, but there could have been more openness about the process and about the fact that there were going to be delays. That could have been done better. There could also have been better communication on the issue. We now face further challenges, as outlined in the amendment, over the technical issues at the Belfast laboratory, which is the North's only HPV screening facility. Thousands of smear tests have been sent to Gateshead since the end of September. I want to know whether that has created any delay or backlog, because I want to be sure that women get their results in a timely manner. How can we be assured of the safety around their being sent there? We need clarity, Minister. We need to have urgent confirmation of when the Belfast lab will be fully operational. We need answers on the accreditation process. Were those issues previously highlighted? Were warnings known about but ignored? Who was responsible for oversight? Without clear accountability, we are doomed to repeat previous failures. We also need oversight of the entire process, including of labs in England that are now handling tests for women from here. Women need to know how long their test results will take and what safeguards are in place to ensure accuracy and safety. On that issue, we need reassurance, direct communication with women and the restoration of confidence in a system that has let them down. I take the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that, despite all the failures, women must continue to attend their cervical screening appointments. As I have said before in the Chamber, it is not a pleasant process, but it takes a few minutes and could save your life. Those tests do save lives. The worst outcome would be that fear or mistrust keeps women from going to be tested. I also take the opportunity to clarify a common misunderstanding, which is that cervical screening also detects ovarian cancer. It does not. I encourage women who are symptomatic of either ovarian or cervical cancer not to think, "I have had a cervical smear and am therefore OK". If a woman has any symptoms, she should go to her GP to seek help and to get the answers about what is going on with her body. She should trust her instinct, because she is usually right. The scandal represents a profound breach of trust. The only way in which to rebuild that trust is through truth and accountability and by making sure that such failures never happen again. Women deserve better. The other question to which I want an answer concerns the women's health action plan. Where are we at with that? All the issues that have been debated in numerous motions over the past number of weeks and months should be included in that plan. Women deserve a health service that listens, that —

— acts and that values their lives and their families.

840 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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