The need for a cervical cancer vaccination programme will be among the issues discussed in a presentation by the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children this afternoon.
The ICS is advocating "mass vaccination for all 12-year-old girls, with catch-up shots for older girls", says a spokeswoman. "In the lead-up to a government-funded mass vaccination programme, the ICS would encourage parents to get their daughters immunised if they can afford it. However, the society acknowledges the inequality of this, so would encourage the Government to complete their deliberations on the introduction of a mass vaccination programme as soon as possible."
The imminent start of the programme in the North puts further pressure on the Government to introduce it here, agrees the vice-chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children, Jan O'Sullivan of Labour.
"We should be doing it for our own sake and not because Britain is doing it," she says.
She points out it is in the Programme for Government and her party supports the idea. O'Sullivan put down a parliamentary question asking about side effects and was told there was nothing significant.
Dr Grainne Flannelly, consultant obstetrician gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital, confirms that the side effects are like those with any other vaccine: a possible soreness at the injection site on the upper arm and you can get mild, 'flu-like symptoms.