Dr. Colm Henry:

We have a committee in the Department of Health called the national screening advisory committee, which is the final approval for extension of existing screening programmes or for consideration of new screening programmes. I mentioned earlier in response to the Deputy's question that we work in collaboration with other European countries looking at potential candidate new screening programmes. I refer, for example, to abdominal aortic aneurysm, prostate-specific antigen tests and lung cancer, which are being implemented in some countries focusing on smokers and CT scanning for smokers. As with other screening programmes, however, I might ask Dr. McCarthy to comment. The principle that underpins this is that there is a balance of harm versus benefit. Sometimes that can be quite finely balanced in terms of the harm that is potentially done by channelling people through a diagnostic pathway that is not without risk and not without stress versus the potential benefits in population terms of what that might mean in outcomes for the cancers.

Maybe Dr. McCarthy could answer the Deputy's-----