Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for her kind words and welcome the opportunity to speak about the proposed extension of the BreastCheck programme to include women aged 65 to 69 years. BreastCheck, the national breast screening programme, offers free mammograms every two years to women aged 50 to 64 years. It is now in its 15th year of screening and has provided almost 1 million mammograms for just over 400,000 women. Approximately 6,350 cancers have been detected through the service. The programme for Government contains a commitment to extend the BreastCheck programme to 65 to 69 year old women in line with EU guidelines. I can confirm that I intend to extend the upper age range to include women in the 65 to 69 year age cohort as soon as the requisite resources can be procured.

A priority of BreastCheck is to maximise the national uptake in the 50 to 64 year age group. As outlined in the recently published BreastCheck report for the period 2012 to 2013, 71.4% of eligible women invited for screening accepted their invitations. As the target in this regard is 70%, it has been exceeded. However, acceptance rates among those invited for the first time have fallen to 66.4%, which is a source of some concern. In the light of these figures, I welcome the current BreastCheck advertising campaign which aims to boost uptake rates and urges all women to take the time to do something very important for themselves by availing of the invitation to have mammograms. At a minimum, this will give some peace of mind, but it might also just be crucial in identifying cancers at an early and more easily treatable stage.

The HSE's national screening service operates three other population-based screening programmes, in addition to BreastCheck. These are CervicalCheck, the national cervical screening programme which provides free smear tests for women between the ages of 25 and 60 years; BowelScreen, the national bowel screening programme which commenced nationwide in late 2012 for men and women aged 60 to 69 years and for which an additional €2 million was provided for its continued development in the HSE's national service plan for 2014; and Diabetic RetinaScreen which commenced in February 2013 and will be offered to people aged 12 years and over with diagnosed diabetes who are registered with the programme. An additional €4.5 million has been allocated for the continued implementation of Diabetic RetinaScreen in the HSE's national service plan for 2014.

Breast screening is one element of the comprehensive cancer care programme. As part of its work across the full range of cancers, the HSE's national cancer control programme provides symptomatic breast clinics at each of the eight cancer centres and a further satellite clinic in Letterkenny. Breast cancer survival rates in Ireland have improved significantly in recent years owing to a combined approach of screening, symptomatic detection and improved treatment.

The five-year survival rate for breast cancer is now estimated at 84.9% for people diagnosed between 2005 and 2009. This is a most encouraging figure and shows a significant improvement from the figure of 75.1% for those diagnosed between 1994 and 1999. I welcome the progress being made, not just to the benefit of the people directly concerned but also to their families, friends and wider communities.