Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputies Naughten, Perry and Stanton.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important health issue and commend my party colleague, Deputy Twomey, for introducing the motion which highlights the seriousness of the problem of breast cancer. Each year, 1,700 women are identified as having the disease and 600 of them die as a consequence of it. One cannot but say that anything that is necessary to reduce the level of suffering and death should be acted on as a matter of urgency by the Government. Promises made in this respect over the years have not been fulfilled. It is difficult to understand why the present situation should continue when it is known that the roll-out of BreastCheck services would significantly reduce the levels of breast cancer in the population. This is particularly the case at a time when we are constantly informed that the Government's coffers are full and the flow of money to the Exchequer is at a level never previously experienced in the State.

There are serious questions as to why the roll-out has been delayed for such a long time. Capital funding for the roll-out of BreastCheck was not allocated until 18 months after the Department of Health and Children announced a national extension. It is difficult to understand why that delay should have taken place, given the seriousness of the issue, which has been acknowledged by previous Ministers for Health and Children Moreover, BreastCheck's own press release indicated that its understanding of the roll-out timeframe was at odds with that of the Tánaiste's Department. This kind of disarray typically underestimates the implications of the delay in rolling out these services. Irish women must now wait until 2008 for all to be treated equally for breast cancer screening. Will the Tánaiste indicate why the timeframe cannot be reduced? Can the roll-out of BreastCheck be implemented within a shorter timeframe?

Women in Northern Ireland have had this facility for 15 years which has resulted in a decrease in deaths from this disease by one fifth. Within a Southern context, one is talking about saving up to 120 lives per annum from breast cancer deaths. By 2008, after 15 years of screening, Northern Ireland will have carried out a considerable life saving exercise. However, by then in the Republic of Ireland, hundreds of women will have lost the battle with breast cancer and hundreds more will have endured devastating radical surgery with its consequential suffering and physical and mental trauma. The late diagnosis of cancer will require more severe chemotherapy and women will have suffered the side-effects of radiotherapy to bring advanced cancer under control, when the services of BreastCheck could have ensured that the experience was avoided for many women. Many women will have had their uterus removed because of cancer which spread before treatment, denying some women the chance to have children. Moreover, some children will have been denied the chance to have a mother, as Deputy Twomey outlined when proposing this motion. The costs to the quality of life of all women who endure cancer treatment will be impossible to measure.

The changes in our society and behaviour make the roll-out of cervical cancer screening more urgent than is generally acknowledged. Cervical cancer has a number of risk factors, including smoking and the number of sexual partners. For this reason, screening should begin six months after a woman becomes sexually active. It is relatively easily performed by smear tests, thousands of which are carried out each year in the form of opportunistic screening by the patients' doctors. In this context, opportunistic means that the patient asks for the test and the GP offers it to the patient. We should have positive proactive screening for cervical cancer and full and comprehensive treatment for breast and cervical cancer as urgent public health policy. I urge the Tánaiste to address the issue in a much shorter timeframe than is proposed.

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