The Taoiseach says they may have made better decisions if they'd known more in advance about the Cervical Check scandal.

In an end of year briefing, Leo Varadkar's told journalists that the reaction to the crisis is his biggest regret of 2018. 

"Making the right decisions with a lot of misinformation was extremely, extremely difficult," he said. 

"That was then compounded by the whole emotion of very sick women and very distraught families.

"I regret we didn't know it was coming or knew more about it in advance and might have been able to handle it a bit better -- and might have been able to make some better decisions."