A terminally ill woman who became the public face of a cervical smear cancer scandal in Ireland is to receive €7.4m (£6.5m) in compensation after five days in legal mediation with the country’s national health executive.



Emma Mhic Mhathúna is one of 209 women who received false negative results in smear tests between 2010 and 2104, errors that only came to light two months ago.

She was told her original smear in 2013 was clear but in May she discovered the cancer had spread to her bones and she was dying.

“I’m dying when I don’t need to die. And my children are going to be without me, and I’m going to be without them,” the 37-year-old told the Irish broadcaster RTÉ in a heart-rending interview in May.

“I tried to do everything right by breastfeeding and being a full-time mum and sacrificing my own life for them. I didn’t see it as a sacrifice and now I’m going to miss out. And I don’t even know if my little baby is going to remember me.”.

Mhic Mathúna, who is a single mother, told RTÉ she had to sit down with her five children, aged from two to 16, and tell them she was dying. The interview triggered fury across Ireland and calls for resignations at the top of the health service.

The false results were kept from the women and only discovered two months ago during a health audit. It transpired that 162 of the women had not been told about the revised results and, of these women, 17 were now dead.

The crisis has to led to a public inquiry and emergency testing.

Mhic Mhathúna and her children took a case against Ireland’s Health Service Executive and Quest Diagnostics, the US lab responsible for the mistake. A full hearing was due to take place on Friday but the case was settled out of court after five days of mediation between the parties.

Justice Kevin Cross said he was pleased the parties managed to resolve their differences and he approved the settlement, under which the HSE admitted liability for failing to disclose the findings of the audit and Quest Diagnostics admitted liability for misreading the smears.