Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Black for giving over her slot to me today. I wrote recently to the committee to ask it to begin to look at this module in the next while and I am very grateful to the committee for inviting me today.

A few comments have confused me a little today. Mention was made of “below the age of 40”, “below the age of 35” or even “below the age of 50”. Breast cancer has been called uncommon and very rare, yet, in preparation for today's session, I sent out seven links for this meeting to people known personally to me who are all at different stages of recovery from breast cancer, and who are between the ages of 25 and 35. In my head, if something is so rare, I wonder why there are seven women personally known to me in my life, all between the ages of 25 and 35, in this position. One would think I would know fewer people than that. How reliable are those numbers and statistics, and how is the data collated on the number of people below the age of 50 who have breast cancer? The number was not provided today as to how many people have it and it does not seem that this number is accessible. How can we be sure of the statistics and how can we be sure this falls into the bracket of "rare"?

As an add-on to that question, has there been an increase in the past five years in the number of women being diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 50 and as low as the age range of 25 to 35?