Teresa Costello (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome HIQA's movement on this. I hope the Government does the right thing and lowers the age for breast cancer screening to 40 and informs women on their breast density. However, with the systematic failures I have outlined where younger women were sent away from a breast care clinic, I do not feel I have received an answer. Generally, when a doctor refers a woman the lump has to be in her breast for eight weeks. She can then have a four-month wait before getting a breast care clinic appointment. That four-month wait means the patient has been six months waiting. If she waits another six months for a scan, that means she has waited a year. When cancer gets to stage 4, it is not going to be cured. I would like that to go back to the Minister. I would like further comment from her on that and further discussion on it because that whole piece is simply unacceptable. It cannot continue. I thank the Minister of State.