Bowel Cancer Ireland criticises 'incremental' expansion of screening programme 

HSE National Screening Service public health medicine consultant Dr Alan Smith, GP advisor Dr Sarah Fitzgibbon, and patient advocates, Mary Kennedy and Peter Larner, at a HSE event to launch the expansion of the bowel screen programme. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

A row has broken out over how slowly the HSE’s bowel screen programme is expanding to cover different ages.

The HSE announced on Tuesday it will expand the programme to cover people aged between 57 and 71, starting this week. It means an extra 116,000 people are eligible, as the cut-off was previously 58.