James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I thank the people who have contributed to this debate. This is a highly emotive issue and rightly so. We are at a moral crossroads when we as a nation put fiscal rectitude and budgetary considerations ahead of the lives of our children and ahead of the lives of a future generation. There are two wonders here: the wonder that we have a vaccine against cancer which is the only one I know of, and the wonder that we have a Government which will not use it.

This morning the Taoiseach told Deputy Enda Kenny that he was wrong when he said that 51 women would die from this illness if this vaccination programme did not go ahead. This is clearly not so. Deputy Kenny quoted from a document which I have referred to on many occasions, the Health Information and Quality Authority assessment of benefit analysis of proceeding with this vaccine. It is worth repeating the name of that agency, HIQA, the Health Information and Quality Authority. It states very clearly that out of 10,074 pre-cancers, 3,680 can be averted. It states that out of 200 cases of cervical cancer annually, 111 can be averted. It states that out of 93 deaths a year, 52 can be averted. That means 52 women will not die if this vaccine is put in place. How can the Minister ignore this stark advice from the Health Information and Quality Authority, which is supported in its conclusions by the Marie Keating Foundation, the National Immunisation Advisory Board, the World Health Organisation, the European Cervical Cancer Organisation, the Irish Family Planning Association, the Well Woman Centre, and many others? The Taoiseach is rubbishing his own Health Information and Quality Authority report. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to make this argument into an issue of either screening or cervical cancer vaccination. It never was, it still is not and it will never be a question of either-or. It will always be a case of both cervical cancer vaccination and screening if we are to rid our island of this scourge.

The Taoiseach made the point this morning that vaccination has never preceded screening in any other country. This is disingenuous. In many other countries, screening has been available for 40 years and it is a damning indictment of this country and this Minister and this Government, that it has only been brought out in the past year, when it started in the mid-west ten years' ago. The fact the vaccine has only been available in the past two years answers the question why it has never preceded the screening programme.

The Daily Mail has a map which shows all the countries in Europe——

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