HEALTH MINISTER JENNIFER Carroll MacNeill has apologised to a woman after “failings” in relation to two smear tests “led to” her cancer diagnosis.

Leona Macken (38) was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2023.

She took legal action in relation to two cervical smear tests, one in 2016 and one in 2020, which medical experts said were incorrectly reported as negative.

An apology from the HSE was read out in the High Court yesterday after Macken settled the legal action.

The High Court heard that Macken now has incurable metastatic cancer.

A letter of apology from the chief executive of the National Screening Service Fiona Murphy, on behalf of the service and the HSE, apologised for the “failings that have occurred and led to your diagnosis”.

An undisclosed settlement was made for damages and the statement expressed “hope that this settlement will give you and your family some level of comfort, peace of mind and security”.

‘Need to look into this myself’

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Macken said she felt she had to go down a legal route to get answers.

“I had been asking questions and they weren’t met by the answers that I was looking for, so that’s why I said I need to look into this myself.

“I didn’t really know where to be going and that’s when they contacted Cian O’Carroll Solicitors.”

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Carroll MacNeill said there “should be open disclosure” and she also offered her apology to Macken.

While Carroll MacNeill said “screening programmes will always have some limitations”, she added that it “shouldn’t happen” that people need to fight for an audit for their personal records.

“I don’t want to provide a justification for why is it happening, it shouldn’t happen,” said Carroll MacNeill.

She said people in medical negligence cases need to have “timely, open disclosure”.

“They need a resolution to their case, and they do not need additional stress going through the court process,” said Carroll MacNeill.

“These are very clear cases and it is really important that people are not provided additional stress and additional hurt through a court process when some of the issues are very clear, and that has to change.

“There is a very different way that we need to approach medical negligence cases and how they’re treated and that is one of the most important things I will be trying to address during the period that I am Minister for Health.”

‘Thank God I started asking questions’

Meanwhile, Macken said yesterday’s apology mean a “huge amount to her”.

“The acknowledgement of the failures and was a really good conclusion,” said Macken.

“We didn’t know whether we were going to get it and there’s been a lot of women in my position that didn’t get that, so it is something I don’t take for granted.”

Macken said she had never missed a smear test and said of her diagnosis: “How did I go from a normal smear in 2020 to cancer in 2023, it just didn’t add up my head.

“Thank God I did start asking questions because I don’t know if I would have ever found this out.”

She added that a cancer diagnosis “wasn’t in my mind at all because I had no history of abnormalities”.

Macken added that there has been “no contact or response from the government” despite her solicitor Cian O’Carroll “reaching out at a certain points”.

She also remarked that “there’s so many things in the system that need to be rectified”.

Speaking to RTÉ yesterday, O’Carroll said it is a “complete falsehood” that there has been an improvement in the way women are told about mistakes in their smear tests.

He said: “The point Macken was making was that, standing outside the High Court in Ireland seven years on from when Vicky Phelan stood in the exact same spot, effectively nothing had changed.

“She was still complaining of similar errors, but ones that have now occurred two years after Vicky.

“Also like Vicky, she was not told of any failures in her screening.”

O’Carroll added that it was “a very big burden” for Macken to pursue the case when “the time you have left is limited”.

Macken however said she is “determined to try and find something to get me out of this”.

“I’m not giving up, I’ve too much to live for,” she told Newstalk Breakfast.

“I have two beautiful children, I have an amazing family and a huge support behind me.

“In every other aspect of my life, I’ve always said I’m so lucky, I just have the most beautiful life, and I don’t want to leave it.”