Cork CervicalCheck campaigner Stephen Teap has described a letter of apology sent by the Clinical Director of the service as "damage limitation".
Dr. Nóirín Russell apologised after making "careless and hurtful" comments about women making claims against CervicalCheck and said what she said two years ago does not reflect her views today.
In a 2020 video chat with Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, Dr. Russell said that the women who had stage one cervical cancer probably knew that they 'haven't been wronged" and were trying to "get money" from the CervicalCheck tribunal.
In a statement issued to RedFM News, Dr. Russell said she "truly regrets the upset caused to women" by her remarks.
The head of the HSE Paul Reid said Dr. Russell's comments were regretful and were not the views of CervicalCheck or the HSE.
Speaking to RedFM News, Stephen Teap from the 221+ group outlines how he first heard about the comments:
"What Dr. Nóirín Russell and Paul Reid call an apology, I would refer to more as damage limitation. There was no retraction of the words that were actually said. I think it was a case that the article was being published and I better send the letter out fast to the people involved in this. So no, I do not accept the letter that will send us an apology. Saturday afternoon out of the blue, I received an email from Dr. Nóirín Russell, to be honest with you the letter itself was more hurtful in the article and therefore was something that we weren't willing to forward on to anybody on the back of not actually knowing what was going to be said in the newspaper article."
