Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

It is not often I remind the Government of another initiative it introduced. Heart Watch is a secondary preventative programme that was introduced after 1997. Having been in office for eight years, the Government has only implemented two screening programmes of any sort. With all the emphasis we should be placing on primary care and the role of health promotion in preventing ill heath, only two screening programmes have been implemented. One is BreastCheck which covers only half of the country. The other is the cervical screening programme which is still very much a pilot programme. Heart Watch has been successful because general practitioners supported it. One cannot join the Heart Watch screening programme unless one has had a heart attack. Therefore, there is no primary screening of any condition apart from breast cancer.

Last week or this week, the Tánaiste made an announcement that she saw no merit in prostate cancer screening, yet 1,200 cases of prostate cancer are detected every year and approximately 600 men die from the cancer every year. The Tánaiste should clarify to the public her remarks to the effect that there is no need for prostate cancer screening. There is merit in introducing such a screening programme and research is being done which will show that. By not introducing such a programme we are dismissing screening as a preventative tool in the health care service. We continually focus on the mechanism of dealing with disease after it has arisen and apportioning increasing amounts of money to hospital services. The introduction of such a programme would save money in the long term. The Government parties have been in office for eight years, yet only half the country is covered by the BreastCheck screening programme, the take-up of the Heart Watch programme has been sporadic and that is the sum total of its health screening and prevention programmes. That is a damning indictment of the approach the Minister is taking to primary care. I would like to hear her views on that.

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