The Irish Cancer Society has offered to donate €1 million to the Department of Health to help establish a national bowel cancer screening programme.
The society said colo-rectal cancer screening is the most clinically effective and cost-effective form of cancer screening and would save up 330 lives a year.
In today's Irish Times, the group's chairman Bill McCabe wrote the need the service was too important to wait 'until Government finances recover'.
He said: "We are offering €1 million over two years to get this screening programme up and running."
"We are making this offer from this December when the 2010 budget will be announced and when we expect State funding for bowel cancer screening to be included in the estimates."
The latest data from the National Cancer Registry showed 2,174 new cases of bowel cancer were diagnosed
in 2007. It is forecast to jump to around 3,300 new cases by 2020.
Minister for Health Mary Harney has asked Hiqa, the Health Information and Quality Authority, to design a proposal for the roll-out of a national bowel cancer screening programme, within existing resources.
Mr McCabe said: "Our priority rests with the roll-out of a well-organised systematic population-based colo-rectal screening programme."
"All evidence points to the urgent need for such a programme which will save 330 lives a year because the cancer will be detected at a stage that it can be treated effectively," he said.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan today criticised the Government for its failure to roll-out a nationwide screening programme and said that it should not rely on part-funding from a voluntary organisation.
It is "completely unfair" to expect the Irish Cancer Society to become "benefactors to the HSE's cancer service," Ms O'Sullivan said.
The situation suggests that "when it comes to preventing this deadly disease, the Government has learned nothing in recent years," she said.