Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Gallagher, for attending the debate and compliment him on the tremendous work he is doing in his portfolio. It was fascinating to listen to Senators Glynn and Henry whom I thank for their professional contributions. From working in the health services, they will have much greater knowledge of medical issues than other Senators.

Every week, one woman presents with cervical cancer in St. James's Hospital in Dublin who would not have done so if a national screening service was in place. Ireland has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in Europe. A regularised cervical cancer screening programme prevents the development of the disease because it recognises it in its pre-cancer stage. As a result, the condition can be treated successfully before the cells become cancerous and spread. The Irish Cancer Society estimates that a national screening programme would reduce cases of cervical cancer and deaths from the disease by up to 80%.

At present, free cervical cancer screening is only available to 71,000 eligible women who live in the mid-western health region. Other eligible women, a group numbering nearly 1 million, who live outside the region must choose to attend and pay for what is known as opportunistic screening, which can be prohibitively expensive and ineffective in reducing cervical cancer rates. It may be worthwhile to explain to the young people present in the Visitors Gallery what opportunistic screening means. An example of this practice would be when a person undergoes a test for cervical or breast cancer, having been asked to do so while visiting a general practitioner with a sore throat or flu. I did not know what opportunistic screening entailed until I started studying this issue about six months ago but it is not the correct approach to cancer screening.

Several weeks ago I visited the National Maternity Hospital's colposcopy clinic in Holles Street, which is run by Dr. Grainne Flannelly, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology and member of the national committee of the Irish Cancer Society. It was a heart-wrenching experience. The women who visit the clinic have been diagnosed with cervical cancer and are fully aware that it kills one in every three women diagnosed with the disease. Dr. Flannelly informed me that women attending her clinic are terrified. The worst aspect of this problem is that cervical cancer is preventable. If we had a national screening programme, many women would not have to endure this trauma.

To roll out a national screening programme would cost approximately €18 million, a tiny amount in the context of the billions of euro spent on the health service. Senator Glynn and I and our colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party will continue to raise this issue at our meetings. In a nutshell, our objective must be to persuade the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, to engage with this issue and press the button which allows €18 million to be spent on a national screening programme.

Breast cancer has overtaken lung and colorectal cancer to become the second most common cancer after skin cancer and affects more than 2,000 women in Ireland each year. In 2001, 2,020 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 645 women died of the disease. As with cervical cancer, early detection leads to better outcomes. When one considers our failure to roll out cancer screening programmes nationally, given the money available to us, one must conclude that we live in a primitive country.

As Senators will be aware, I drew up a document entitled A New Approach to Child Care. I am currently drafting a new programme entitled A New Approach to Ageing and Ageism and have made considerable progress towards finalising it by February. The prevalence of ageism in the health service should have caused a revolution by now. The current, restricted breast cancer screening programme is only available to those aged 64 years and under. Why was 65 years taken as a cut-off point for the eligibility criteria to participate in the programme? The authorities would not get away with such a decision today.

The conventional wisdom, that the chances of contracting cancer decline as one grows older, has been turned on its head by more recent research. Outdated research from the 1980s indicated that the risk of breast cancer for women aged over 65 years was relatively low, yet Cancer Research UK has published research indicating that 75% of breast cancer occurs in women aged over 65 years. These are disturbing statistics. Cancer screening should be freely available to all women who are at risk of the disease, regardless of age.

My intention is not to exclude men or male cancer from this debate. I look forward to placing men's health on the agenda of the House in the new year.