Campaigner Vicky Phelan has welcomed the Government's pledge to bring forward the establishment of a tribunal of compensation for women caught up in the CervicalCheck scandal.

It comes after the Taoiseach agreed to make the establishment of the tribunal one of the Government's priorities for the first half of the year.

Leo Varadkar said Judge Mary Irvine has already been appointed to chair the tribunal - and said the legislation will be one of a "small number of bills" to be prioritised with the Government focusing the bulk of its time on Brexit.

Public pressure

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Ms Phelan welcomed the move - but said it was unfortunate that it took public pressure to get there.

"It sounds a lot better than what we were promised originally," she said.

"Unfortunately, it takes shouting about this and complaining about it in the media for things to be actually taken a bit more seriously.

"Simon Harris has mentioned before Christmas that it would be late 2019 before it was established and now the Taoiseach has come, under pressure, to say that it will be in the first half of the year - which would be far more appealing to some of the women here."

Speaking now to @PhelanVicky about her concerns of how @Campaignforleo is managing the #CervicalCheck crisis. Vicky is telling us about another woman who has stage 4 cervical cancer and is taking a case against the state. Is the government failing on it's duty of care? #BKNT pic.twitter.com/IR8B2rcqZU

— Newstalk Breakfast (@BreakfastNT) January 15, 2019

Government response

She said many of the women affected by the scandal have been forced to speak out because the Government failed to act quickly enough.

She said it is the best interests of all sides to get the tribunal up and running as quickly as possible.

"There are at least 50 cases coming down the line this year and it is in the Government's best interests as well as the women's [...] that this tribunal be established," she said.

"Otherwise what is going to happen is that there are going to be women parading up to the High Court.

"A lot of women have decide that they would go public because they  are so angry at the delays to all of the this and wanted the option of the Tribunal.

"The sooner the better that this tribunal be set up and established."

"All talk and no action"

The Taoiseach's announcement came after Ms Phelan said his response to the scandal had been "all talk and no action."

Speaking exactly one year from when she was given a terminal cancer diagnosis after previously receiving a false negative smear test result, she praised the Health Minister Simon Harris for his response but warned that she did not 'have the same confidence in the Taoiseach.'

In response, Mr Varadkar said: "One of the things that I respect and admire most about Vicky Phelan is that she has said that she would like something good to come out of the tragedy that has affected her."

"And I share that objective," he said.

"That means reforming court health service so that it becomes more open and more honest and that is what we are going to do."

He said he had asked Minister Harris and the Attorney General to ensure that the legislation for the tribunal is "drafted, published and enacted in the first half of this year."

Ms Phelan said the Government must now ensure that the Attorney General has enough resources to get the bill across the line in time.