CAMPAIGNERS protesting over the scrapping of the cervical cancer vaccination programme for girls have called on Minister for Health Mary Harney to resign.
About 100 people took part in a protest at the Spire on O'Connell Street in Dublin on Saturday afternoon during which the Government was urged to reverse its "damaging" decision.
The rally was organised on the internet through a 2,000-member discussion group on the social networking site Facebook and the Feminist Open Forum.
A petition calling for the vaccination programme to proceed was signed by about 200 people, including passing members of the public.
Ms Harney announced earlier this month that a proposed scheme to vaccinate all 12-year-olds against the most common strains of the virus that cause cervical cancer would not proceed due to financial constraints.
The programme, due to begin in September 2009, would have cost an estimated €10 million to €15 million next year.
Protest organiser Sinéad Kennedy accused the Government of being unwilling to spend a relatively "small sum" of money to save women's lives.
"They are, however, willing to pay €1.2 million in bonuses to HSE executives who have overseen the systematic mismanagement of our health service and give tax breaks worth €10.6 million to the developers of private for-profit hospitals," she said.
Ms Kennedy said the forum planned to stage more rallies and to co-ordinate with other groups protesting against Budget cuts.
Another organiser, Elisa O'Donovan, argued that many European countries have already implemented the programme.
Those countries did so "because they have the foresight to see that prevention is better, and cheaper, than cure," she said.
Cervical cancer kills about 80 women in Ireland annually. A further 200 cases are diagnosed each year.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/e8fa4512-dd7b-401d-9688-d4e6bf1533c3.png)