Some women in the south and west will have to wait until 2009 before they are able to avail of the BreastCheck screening service, it was confirmed yesterday.
John McCormack, chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society (ICS), said that while BreastCheck was finally to be rolled out to the south and west at the end of this year, only some women in each region could be screened next year and the remainder would have to wait until 2009 for their first appointment for breast cancer screening under the programme.
He said women in those regions would be very disappointed with the news and understandably so as there had been an announcement as far back as 2003 that BreastCheck would be rolled out to all areas by the end of 2005.
"It is clearly important that with other screening programmes that we don't see this kind of apartheid where one part of the country gets it before another part of the country," he said.
He was speaking in Dublin at the launch of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The event is taking place at a time of widespread concern about the quality of breast cancer care services across the State.
It follows the late diagnosis of two Tipperary women with breast cancer after their biopsy results were inaccurately reported on by laboratories at Cork and Galway University Hospitals.
There is also a review promised of breast cancer care given to patients at Barringtons' private hospital in Limerick since September 2003and a separate review of the reading of thousands of mammograms and breast ultrasounds taken at the Midland Hospital in Portlaoise since November 2003 has begun.
Naomi Fitzgibbon, manager of the ICS's Action Breast Cancer programme, said the State was experiencing an ongoing crisis in the way its breast cancer services are delivered.
Care is delivered in too many centres, she said, and she is anxiously awaiting the designation by the HSE of a small number of specialist centres which in future will treat the disease.
"We cannot wait any longer for these units to be developed," she said.
The HSE is due to decide on the location of the specialist centres within days.
Irish women have a one in 11 chance of developing breast cancer during their lifetime and latest figures from the National Cancer Registry show some 2,379 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2005.
Meanwhile, the findings of new research conducted by Behaviour and Attitudes for the ICS among almost 500 women over 18 years shows many women do not know the most important risk factors for developing breast cancer.
Asked what the single most important risk factor was, 52 per cent said family history, 16 per cent said smoking and 7 per cent said excess stress levels.
In fact, the single most important risk factor is age, with 75 per cent of all breast cancer cases occurring in women over the age of 50 years and 37 per cent of them among women over the age of 65 years.
Only 5-10 per cent of women who present with breast cancer have a family history of the disease and stress is not known to be in any way linked to its onset.
Ms Fitzgibbon said the fact that the risk of breast cancer increases with age means older women also need to continue to be breast aware.
Eileen Bofin (77) from Monkstown in Dublin, who has twice experienced breast cancer and has undergone a double mastectomy, has called for BreastCheck to be extended to older women. Currently it offers screening to women aged 50-64 years only.
Age Action Ireland has backed her call,pointing out that one in three breast cancer cases diagnosed in 2005 would not have been detected by the scheme because of the existing age restriction.