Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

We are effectively going to provide a home screening service. The kits will be sent to people and, to a large extent, they will be providing the service for themselves. Some 6% will require follow up by way of a colonoscopy, so that is a relatively small number out of the 200,000 who will be screened every year.

It is not envisaged that we would extend it beyond 60 to 69 years of age in the initial phase. Every new programme must be phased in, as was done in Sweden, Finland and the UK.

It would not make sense to duplicate a service in the community which we currently have at hospital level. We want ten or a maximum of 12 centres nationally. All the advice from both the Health Information and Quality Authority and the National Cancer Screening Service was that for many reasons, these colonoscopies should be done at hospital level.

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