Seanad debates
Wednesday, 19 February 2003
Cancer Screening Programme: Motion.
When are we going to get a national register for breast screening? I have been talking about this need for too long in this House. BreastCheck still gets its register from four different sources. This is a terrible waste of time and money. I believe we now have registration numbers for people up to the ages of four or five. However, we must extend them because we cannot wait another 45 years to call 50 year old women. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children the other day I heard representatives of BreastCheck complain that one of their major problems is the lack of a national register. BreastCheck is having to bear the cost of this, which the Minister's Department should not be doing. The Minister should pass this problem to the Department of the Environment and Local Government and tell them to get on with it. It must be possible to extend the register more rapidly.
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