The failure of Government to date to provide a cervical screening programme and a breast cancer screening programme for all women in the State has been condemned by the Irish Medical Organisation.
A cervical screening programme was set up on a pilot basis in the mid-west in the year 2000, but there is still no sign of it being extended nationwide.
Breast cancer screening began under BreastCheck in three health board regions in the same year, and while it is being rolled out across a number of other regions at the moment, it is still not available to women living in the west or south.
Some 61 women died from cervical cancer in the State in 2002 and around 600 women die from breast cancer in the State every year.
Dr Mary Gray, a Limerick-based GP, told delegates attending the annual conference of the IMO that it was "getting embarrassing" at this stage talking about the pilot cervical screening programme in the mid-west, given it was going on
so long.
She said cervical screening programmes were the norm in most developed countries, yet screening was only available to a limited number of women in the Republic.
Delegates also adopted a motion stating they deplored the lack of access to the national breast cancer screening programme by women in some health board areas.
Dr Martin Daly, a GP in the west, said the programme was due to be rolled out nationwide within two years, but many GPs were cynical about that promise.
The Independent Mayo TD and GP, Dr Gerry Cowley, has claimed at least 65 women are needlessly dying of breast cancer in the west and south each year as a result of the failure to extend breast cancer screening to those areas.
The Department of Health said plans are in place to extend BreastCheck nationwide. It also said the pilot cervical screening programme in the mid-west was now being evaluated.