The Irish Cancer Society's General Election Advocacy Campaign is hinged on a 3 Point Plan. We have asked the main political parties to support this Plan which is to:

• tackle Ireland’s high rate of smoking
• extend the age groups screened for breast and bowel cancer and
• pass legislation currently being prepared to control the use of sunbeds in Ireland.

Find out more about the 3 Point Plan and how you can spread the word.

If cancer is high on the health agenda, we will start to make real headway in cutting cancer rates and increasing survival rates in Ireland.

Our campaign is called 'iCAN' because the campaign focuses on giving the thousands of the Society’s volunteers and supporters and cancer survivors from around the country the opportunity to have their voice heard by all election candidates. We have printed 10,000 business cards that ask people to:

• Raise the issue of cancer with canvassers at the door
• Phone election candidates
• Visit www2.cancer.ie/iCAN and send a letter to the election candidates
• Sign our pledge of support on www2.cancer.ie/iCAN
• 'Like' the Irish Cancer Society on Facebook

We have also printed car bumper stickers, fact sheets and posters which can be downloaded from our website.

Political parties have given us very positive feedback about our 3 Point Plan. Cancer is a disease that 1 in 3 of us will be diagnosed with and is therefore a major health issue for the new Government. The good news is that more and more people are surviving cancer so we are making a strong call to Government to focus on policies that support the prevention and early detection of cancer.

Our 3 Point Plan is very simple and we are delighted that so many volunteers are helping us with the iCAN campaign. Why don't you visit our website now and take a few moments to add your name to the pledge or send a letter to all your election candidates by simply clicking a button?

We will be monitoring the activity of the new Government to ensure our 3 Point Plan remains a high priority for them and will update you on our progress in the next issue of Spotlight.

Welcome: Rachel Morrogh

The Advocacy Team has a new member! Rachel Morrogh is an experienced Public Affairs practitioner and joined us in January from the Vancouver Board of Trade, Canada. She previously held Public Affairs positions in Insight Consultants and Fleishman-Hillard in Dublin. We are delighted to welcome her to the team - she brings with her new campaign ideas, a fresh perspective and lots of energy that will be channelled into our advocacy activities. If you would like to discuss any of our current campaigns with her you can email her at rmorrogh@irishcancer.ie or call her on 01 231 6634.

Keeping bowel cancer on the agenda

The Irish Cancer Society welcomed the publication by the National Cancer Screening Service of the National Progress Report on Endoscopy Services but highlighted that the issue of waiting times for colonoscopies is far from solved.

Improvements need to be made in hospitals before the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme is rolled out in January 2012. The screening programme is being delivered in 15 hospitals, many of whom had a high numbers of people waiting months for a colonoscopy according to figures released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund.

We will continue to advocate for the reduction of colonoscopy waiting times before the screening programme is rolled out.

Cigarette Price Reduction

The Irish Cancer Society is very disappointed that after 30 years of steady increases of the price of cigarettes, Pall Mall cut the cost of 20 cigarettes by 50c in early February. We have written to our national and European politicians to ask them to work with us and ensure that this situation is reversed as a matter of urgency. European law needs to allow for a fixed minimum price of tobacco products.

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