Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)

I commend the motion to the House. It is easy to throw statistics around but one of the most frequently used figures to highlight the squandering of the Government's resources is the €55 million spent on electronic voting machines for last summer's elections. It was the most blatant waste of taxpayers' money ever. A sum of €50 million may not be significant in the context of the annual Government spend but it is significant in the context of the facilities and services it could provide.

I refer to the roll-out of the BreastCheck screening programme. It is available on the east coast but an apartheid system applies to health services for women, with the BreastCheck service provided in the east and none in the south or west. This essential service is denied to women in my county, Kerry, and throughout the rest of the south and west. Women are dying in the south and west from breast cancer because of the Government's failure to extend the free breast screening programme. Screening saves lives. The amount needed to run the programme in the south and west is precisely the amount the Government squandered on electronic voting. A sum of €50 million would build BreastCheck clinics in Cork and Galway and allow the service to become operational with enough resources and personnel for a full year. However, the Government chose voting machines instead of saving women's lives.

Government Members will inform the House tomorrow night that the Minister for Health and Children recently announced capital funding for BreastCheck in Connacht and Munster. However, excuse me if I am a little cynical about that because this is the fifth time the same funding has been announced in the past three years. Meanwhile, not a single block has been laid in Cork or Galway for the roll-out of BreastCheck, while the electronic voting machines have been stored to gather dust at further significant expense to the taxpayer. When the Minister of State at the Department of Finance contributes to the debate tomorrow, will he outline the up-to-date cost of the storage of the machines and what plans the Government has for them? We want X-ray machines, not voting machines.

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