CervicalCheck claims cost State nearly €19m – C&AG report

The State has paid almost €19 million for claims arising from the HSE CervicalCheck controversy, the Comptroller & Auditor General said in his annual report.The report from the public spending watchdog says the €18.9 million cost of claims at the end of 2025 includes €6.6 million in damages paid to people who took action against the State.The controversy started in 2018 when it emerged women diagnosed with cervical cancer had not been told of audits of their previous smear tests which were carried out after their diagnosis.In many cases the audit results were different from the original smear test result – and this may have led to different treatment routines and outcomes for some of them. Many of the women have since died.READ MORELegal actions taken against the State arising from the affair are managed by the State Claims Agency (SCA), a branch of the National Treasury Management Agency which is responsible for personal injury, clinical negligence and third-party property damage cases.The SCA had received notification of 411 claims related to the CervicalCheck programme at the end of 2025, nine more than at end of 2024. Such cases include “86 psychological injury claims from family members of women” availing of the programme, the report says.“The claims are primarily taken against the laboratories responsible for reading the test results and the Health Service Executive for non-disclosure of the results of clinical audit. Laboratories are contractually obliged to provide an indemnity to the State,” it adds.“Mediation is offered where possible to resolve claims in a non-adversarial manner, although this may not always be under the control of the [SCA].”The C&AG says 30 CervicalCheck claims were concluded in 2025. This took the overall number of claims concluded to 337 by the end of 2025, or 82 per cent of the total.“The SCA is not informed of the settlement payments made by the laboratories and therefore is unable to provide the total costs for this cohort of claims,” says the report.“As at the end of 2025, the total amount paid by SCA in respect of CervicalCheck claims amounted to €18.9 million, including €6.6 million in paid damages.”Across the board the cost in 2025 of all SCA settlements, awards and expenses was €513 million, down from €521 million in 2024. The SCA recovers such amounts from the relevant State authorities.The estimated cost of settling all claims outstanding against the State at the end of 2025 was €5.46 billion, up from €5.35 billion in 2024.Clinical claims totalling €4.43 billion account for most of the estimated aggregate outstanding liability, with the remaining €1.03 billion related to general claims. Maternity-related claims make up about €2.67 billion, or 60 per cent of the total value of clinical claims.