Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 235: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if a parent who is now unemployed and who paid a total of €760 during 2009 to have their two teenage daughters vaccinated against cervical cancer will be given a refund in view of the decision to fund a cervical cancer screening programme for teenage girls; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5622/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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I have always accepted the consensus view of the relevant expert bodies that the introduction of a universal high-uptake vaccination programme in young girls, in conjunction with population-based cervical screening, could significantly reduce overall cervical cancer incidence. The issue was not, therefore, whether the case for a cervical cancer vaccination programme was accepted by myself and the Government — because it always was — but how to place such a programme in order of clinical priorities for the allocation of scarce resources available for public health services and for the cancer programme in particular.

Recently I requested the HSE to initiate a tendering process for the procurement of a HPV vaccine with a view to commencing a HPV vaccination programme for all girls in first year in secondary school and until this process was completed I was not in a position to say if or when I would introduce this programme. This tendering process for the vaccine is now complete. We can now purchase the vaccine at a price much lower than we expected to pay in 2008 and at a price much closer to what is being paid in other countries. In these circumstances, the programme can now be delivered from the extra resources committed in this year's budget to the overall Cancer Programme.

The HSE is committed to starting this campaign during the current school year. This will involve the free vaccination of up to 30,000 girls mainly in school settings and an announcement of the details of the full programme involved will be made by the HSE in the near future. The programme will continue with vaccine being offered to all girls in first year in secondary school each year but it is not proposed to extend the vaccination programme to other classes at present. Unfortunately it will not be possible to refund the costs of vaccinations administered privately.