The recession and public service recruitment ban are being blamed for limiting the HSE's ability to cope with the Cervical Check programme.
There are fears the programme will collapse if US labs quit the programme.
Negotiations are currently underway to renew their contracts which are due to expire in October, with reports that they want the Irish tax-payer to underwrite medical negligence costs.
DCU Professor of Health Systems, Anthony Staines, says the HSE should have been building up the skills here but the recruitment ban affected this:
"any service development that required hiring more staff suddenly had a much higher barrier to overcome. It was much easier to continue paying for the service abroad than to hire the staff here"
Meanwhile the publication of the Scally report is expected to clarify unanswered questions in relation to who knew what and when, regarding audits of over 200 women's false negative smear test results.
Health Minister Simon Harris confirmed he's bringing the report to cabinet on Wednesday and is meeting author of the report Dr. Gabriel Scally today.
