Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The BreastCheck programme covers east to west and is being extended to Galway. The Tánaiste and I met some consultants earlier in the year. The service covers approximately half the population. It will be rolled out in the rest of the country between now and the beginning of 2007, which is in 14 or 15 months' time. This progress has been made from a time when there was no BreastCheck service. There are many additional consultants providing a far better cancer service throughout the country now than was ever the case. There are 107 dedicated consultants working in this area at senior level, plus 245 clinical nurses. The units are improving dramatically the cancer services.

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