Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire, Progressive Democrats)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this issue this evening. The money which was invested was invested wisely and soundly, and this has had a direct effect on the health of women in particular. However, there is one difficulty which causes great anger. A friend of mine from Galway who listens to the advertisement on the radio inviting women between the ages of 50 and 64 to avail of cancer screening gets angry when she hears the caveat at the end of the advertisement that it is only available to people living in the eastern, north-eastern and midland areas. It is understandable that this angers her. What is so different about people from the Cork or Galway regions? Why are these women not entitled to these services?

I met women at our annual conference in Cork last week who were just as angry, which is understandable. Services, particularly an excellent life-saving service such as BreastCheck, should be provided equally for everyone in the country . No one can be proud of a health service which discriminates on the basis of geography or one's address. I am sure the Minister is not proud of this. She is keen to see the matter rectified. She has not been in the job long, but it is one of her priorities. I believe the excellent services that have been available to women on the eastern seaboard and in the midlands will soon be available to women living in the west and south.

BreastCheck has been very successful. The number of people whose lives have been saved because of early detection can be clearly demonstrated. When researching this subject, I was pleased to hear that Ireland compares favourably with figures internationally. Some 94% of women in Ireland are diagnosed with cancer without having an operation while the figure internationally is 70%. That is excellent. It is no wonder that women in the parts of the country that do not have a service are angry. The BreastCheck programme proves that prevention is better than cure.

In the past month, many Deputies attended an information session on cervical cancer services. The point was well made that we need to set up a systematic operational screening service, which will save lives, rather than an opportunistic one.

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