Eight women died in County Donegal last year from cervical cancer out of a total national figure of 81, Fine Gael Deputy Joe McHugh has told the Dáil.
Speaking on the same motion, he said he would outline the difficulty he had explaining this decision to parents, particularly mothers.
"When a person leaves Donegal for Dublin they usually travel by car or bus," he said. "There is no train service f
rom Donegal to Dublin. Take the example of a woman suffering from cervical cancer who is travelling by bus to Dublin. The bus will leave Letterkenny, cross the bridge at Lifford and travel to Strabane. When it reaches Strabane the woman can look into the lit up houses if it is the morning or late at night. The question that woman will ask as she travels from Strabane, through Omagh and into Aughnacloy is: 'Why will the 12 year old daughters on these roads be entitled to a vaccination procedure, while my 12 year old daughter living in Donegal will not?' "
On reaching Emyvale after crossing the Border, he said the traveller is back in the country that is reactive, not progressive, had no forward vision, did not wish to undertake forward planning and had a stark history of making mistakes and looking at short-term targets.
"This is a short-term target," he said. "It is a disaster. It is a microcosm of where we are as a country and where we are as a nation. It is a microcosm of all the ills in this country." The Government must focus on prevention, he said. Following the release of another study on prostate cancer, Rory Hafford had produced a document which stated that 500 to 600 lives could be saved. "We need intervention and a U-turn on this issue," he added. "I implore the Minister to do it."
