Fine Gael has called on Minister for Health Mary Harney to set a target date for the beginning of nationwide cervical screening.
Longford-Roscommon TD Denis Naughten criticised a Dáil reply by the Minister in which she expressed her commitment to the start of the service, but made "no reference to a time frame".
"The Government has been promising to grant the cervical cancer screening programme since it came to power. However, six years after the introduction of phase one of the national cervical screening programme in the Mid-Western Health Board, there has been no expansion of the service."
Mr Naughten said the "Tánaiste's failure to move on this project now is directly impacting on the lives of Irish women whose chances of early detection and survival from cervical cancer are lessened in the absence of a nationwide screening programme".
"Every year 70 women in this country die from cancer of the cervix. The mortality rate from cervical cancer in Ireland has been increasing at the rate of 1.7 per cent every year since 1978. Our mortality rate, which was half of that in the UK in the late 1970s, is now greater than in any of the regions of the UK.
"The Tánaiste can no longer afford to ignore these frightening statistics, which recent reports conclude are the result of the absence of population-based screening for cervical cancer in Ireland."
In his Dáil question the Fine Gael TD had asked when the national cervical screening programme would start and when quarterly cervical smear clinics would be reintroduced in Roscommon.
Ms Harney said that an international expert examined the feasibility of a national cervical screening programme and following the publication of a report, the department completed a consultative process with relevant professional and advocacy stakeholders.
"There is considerable support for the programme roll-out and the need for improved organisation, quality assurance and governance arrangements to support a national roll-out. I made available an additional €9 million to the Health Service Executive for cancer services development in 2006."
