Health Minister Simon Harris said the public apology to CervicalCheck victims was a reflection of “how the women and their families felt, and they felt deceived”.
Mr Harris said Leo Varadkar worked with the 221+ group representing many of the women affected over the last number of months so that a “meaningful” apology could be delivered.
Mr Varakdar apologised on behalf of the State “for the humiliation, the disrespect and deceit” shown to women caught up in the crisis.
He said: “What happened to so many women and families should not have happened. While every case was not negligence, every case was a lost opportunity for an earlier diagnosis and treatment.
“It was a failure of our health service, State, its agencies, systems and culture.”
The Taoiseach said the apology “is offered to all the people the State let down. And to the families who paid the price for those failings”.
“A broken service, broken promises, broken lives - a debacle that left a country heartbroken. A system that was doom to fail.”
Minister Harris said he will bring a full Patient Safety Bill to Cabinet next month and that “really good work” has been done on it.
He said there was a “very big difference” between mandatory disclosure of a serious reportable incident and between the day-to-day issues that can arise in a hospital, such as inadequate food.
He said there would be no option in the bill to not tell a patient about a mishap or error, and that legislating for mandatory disclosure was something “we should have done years ago”.
He added: “The apology can only be the beginning of that process.”
