Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

It is interesting to examine the issues this Government considers important —€18 million was allocated for stables for horses without the issue coming before the Cabinet and €56 million was allocated for electronic voting, disregarding the cost of storing the equipment. The overall cost must be approximately €70 million at this stage. Yet this same Government cannot spare €25 million to extend the BreastCheck programme to the entire country. If this had taken place approximately 15 years ago, the Government's reluctance to sanction the release of an amount like that would be understandable. However, it is not understandable given the country's current wealth. The Government is prepared to put the lives of women outside Leinster at risk for a paltry amount of money.

It was not just in 2000 that promises that BreastCheck would be extended to the rest of the country were made. The former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, made the same promise in 1999 on a local basis. He again announced it in 2002 and 2004. Just before he left office, he again assured us that the programme would be extended in 2007. These dates are significant because they were election years. The former Minister played politics with BreastCheck. The willingness of people in the rest of the country to believe Deputy Martin because he was from Cork always worried me. He did as little in Cork as he did in the rest of the country.

Ministerial promises on the delivery of linear accelerators go back to 1998. A linear accelerator, which is now about to be installed in CUH, is at the end of the pipeline. We hope that there would be many women who would never need to be treated with a linear accelerator if BreastCheck was rolled out to the Munster area. We will all be using linear accelerators if we have to wait as long for the delivery of promises by the current Minister as we did for those of the previous Minister. I do not think that is a pleasant experience.

Last weekend, the Progressive Democrats had their conference in Cork. The only thing I looked forward to was listening to Deputy Harney's speech, which had to be more entertaining than "Friends", for example. However, I received a telephone call on Wednesday from a woman called Noreen who had never attended the meetings and demonstrations about BreastCheck because she believed the Government's promises and who is now being treated for breast cancer. She told me that she had asked to meet the Minister for Health and Children when she arrived in Cork and planned to give her a letter. However, the Minister was refusing to meet her and she was at a loss as to what to do. She asked for my help and I provided her with assistance. If one looks at the demonstration outside Silver Springs Hotel, it was made up of women who are non-political but who had either been recently diagnosed with, were being treated for or had survived breast cancer. They are articulate women with no political bent who realised very early on that the political will to ensure the early detection of breast cancer in their cases was not present and who are now worried for their daughters. They are worried that their daughters will have to endure what they did. All the Minister has to do is sanction the release of the money to BreastCheck. The site survey has been done, the building is in place and everything needed to run the BreastCheck programme is present. BreastCheck is prepared to roll-out the programme in the morning. The only thing missing is the money.

We received a visit from a Progressive Democrats politician who I will not name and who told us the decision was imminent. She would not specify which decision was imminent. Maybe she meant the decision to extend BreastCheck and that it would be announced tonight. We are all hoping that the decision regarding the money to extend BreastCheck is imminent for the sake of the women of the country.

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