‘There’s a lot going on that doesn’t stack up with that apology’
Families blast ministers over ‘insulting and disrespectful behaviour’ during apology
HUSBANDS whose wives died as a result of the CervicalCheck scandal criticised the ‘insulting and disrespectful’ behaviour of a number of senior ministers and deputies for texting during the Taoiseach’s State apology to the women and families affected by the CervicalCheck debacle.
Paul Reck, 48, who lost his wife Catherine to cancer in 2012 and learned she was one of over 221 women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal last year, attended the apology on Tuesday in the Dáil along with campaigners Vicky Phelan, Lorraine Walsh, Stephen Teap and many others affected.
The father-of-three told the Irish Mail on Sunday that while he felt the Taoiseach’s speech was ‘heart-warming, sincere and emotional’, the TDs and ministers who began texting during the speech took away from the important acknowledgement to the women and their families.
Mr Reck said: ‘I went there for Catherine and it was disrespectful to her memory as far as I was concerned to see them using their phones. It had me cut me up.
‘I called one of the ushers over and I said can you please pass on to the chamber that it’s very insulting and disrespectful for ministers and TDs to be on their phones while we’re being apologised to. She said she’d pass it on to the supervisor, but they continued.
‘I thought it was the most disrespectful act. Could they not have just put them away for the moment that was in it?’
There was one TD out of the visibility of the cameras who was on their phone for most of the Taoiseach’s speech, according to Mr Reck.
The only other TD visibly using his phone was Communications Minister Richard
Bruton who can be seen scrolling in footage of the apology.
A spokeswoman for Mr
Bruton said: ‘Minister Bruton used his phone briefly to inform his office that he would be delayed to a conference that he was due to address as the Dáil Schedule had changed.’
Mr Reck also criticised the Ceann Comhairle’s 10-minute limitation on the Taoiseach’s speech. He said putting a time limit on the apology was ‘demeaning of what was about to happen’. While Mr Reck felt the apology was important, he said it was ‘only words’ and unless the State take action, it’s ‘pointless’.
Shay McGreal, 53, also lost his wife Dee to cervical cancer in 2017, and is awaiting the results of the independent review of smear tests to find out whether she is also a 221+ member.
He told the MoS he didn’t watch the State apology, but said: ‘For someone to apologise and acknowledge something is always good but while he was up apologising there are still people being dragged through the court system on this.
There’s a lot going on that doesn’t stack up with that apology.
‘There was a guarantee that women would not be dragged through the courts, so I take it all with a very, very large pinch of salt.’
Ian Church, the brother of Orla Church who was the 21st woman to die in the scandal last year, told the MoS that his family appreciated the apology, but that too many unanswered questions and issues are still in force for it to ‘deliver home the message it intended’.
‘I thought it was the most disrespectful act’