Minister for Health Simon Harris
This morning.
Via RTE:
Correspondence obtained by RTÉ News has revealed that a private secretary to the Minister for Health wrote on 6 June to the woman whose case exposed the latest CervicalCheck crisis.
The letter to ‘Sharon’ says that: “The Minister for Health, Simon Harris, T. D. has asked me to thank you for your correspondence concerning CervicalCheck and would like to again apologise for any distress this delay has caused you and reassure you that this is a priority for his Department and the Health Service Executive (HSE).”
Last weekend, the department said that it became aware of the existence of an IT issue on 25 June through information supplied by the Health Service Executive.
Minister Harris has said the matter was first escalated to him last Wednesday evening, 10 July.
Minister’s office wrote to woman at centre of latest CervicalCheck issue on 6 June (RTÉ)
Previously: ‘I’m Still Kind Of Flabbergasted’
The Minister, or his secretary wrote a letter to Sharon on 6 June 2019 in response to a letter from Sharon.
Fine.
When did Sharon write to the Minister? Surely, the Minister will have known about the issue when Sharon wrote to him, and that was presumably before 6 June?
I have no interest in defending the minister on this, and I know it’s not good manners or anything but, in reality, the whole “…the minister has asked me to thank you for your letter….” type of response does not at all guarantee that the minister has seen or taken any interest in your letter. It’s just a way civil servants start letters.
We don’t know what Sharon said in her letter – it is unlikely that she was informing the minister that there was a computer glitch and the manual process for sending letters had failed. The reply was that the Minister’s office would look into whatever she had instigated (I’m guessing it was no response from HSE about her re-tests).
Possibly when they did look into it they found the clusterfupp that was going on and then was when the Minister was made aware of it.
Of all possible explanations for these circumstances, I like your one in tacit support of Minister Harris the best.
blushirt minister for health fails the sick, again..
ARE YOU ALRIGHT SHARON?
Thanks for the laugh.
The Cervical Check scheme is just one Clusterfock after another. More dead women to handwring over and fight through the courts.
As posted earlier in the day, Harris evaded the question of when he was aware, twice when asked yesterday. Now we know why. His bull and bluster and rat-a-tat answers count for nothing.
I heard him say the 10th of July on Today FM yesterday.
And the Irish electorate will still vote for this inept, incompetent, daw jawed waster. The majority of people in this country are just as bad as Harris and Varadkar. That’s why they vote for them.
Stop feigning anger at how these women are being put to death due state initiated incompetence and wrecklesness. Angry face emojis online but voting for them in the secrecy of the ballot. Chasing with the hounds and running with the hare. Pathetic
Would it be rude to ask, or has anyone asked, is Quest still doing these tests?