The Health Minister has denied that he ignored advice that facilitating free repeat smears would have serious consequences on CervicalCheck.
Former Clinical Lead of the service Grainne Flannelly says she warned colleagues that the laboratories would not have the capacity to deal with an influx of tests.
Prof Flannelly told colleagues in the National Screening Service the capacity wasn't there to process the tests - and that there would be long delays as a result.
She said she believed doing so would 'fundamentally undermine the screening process'.
Her advice was passed on to the Department of Health which decided to proceed with issuing free out-of-cycle smears for women.
Simon Harris says he was never advised of Grainne Flannelly's concerns:
"I never received any contrary advice in relation to the provision of free repeat smear tests."
"It is clear that after the decision was made that some in the cc p did express some concerns in relation to the operationalizing of it."
