Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I wish to follow on from Senator Burke's comments about the impact of screening on the population's health. Perhaps it is not Dr. Doherty's area, but my understanding is that before the start of the cervical screening programme ten years ago we had the highest rate of cervical cancer in Europe, and we had done nothing to try to impact on that. I think Dr. Walker said at the private briefing that it has gone down 7% year on year; that is what I wrote down that day. It may be 5.5% as Dr. Doherty said, but at least it is in the right direction. There was a comment passed here yesterday, and I am not sure if I misinterpreted it, asking if there was a material impact. It is very important that somebody with a medical background, who is qualified to say it, can say categorically here today that we used to have an increasing rate of 4% and now it is between 5.5% and 7% in the downward direction. The net impact of that is lives saved, but also that early intervention has had positive outcomes for the population for women who might have had their fertility or their personal lives affected.

It is not just about mortality. One of the witnesses said earlier on that it is about having the least impact on people's lives. Reference was also made earlier to the consequences of over-diagnosis, or dealing with false positives, and that one does not start zapping everybody with radiation if they have a small cellular change, that that has a net impact on the rest of their cells. If it was as easy as just assuming everybody had a certain low level we could zap everybody, but that is not the way it is done. One has to deal with the data in front of one on the slides-----