The Irish Cancer Society has donated €1 million to BowelScreen, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme.

The funding will be used to purchase equipment in hospitals around the country, which will support the expansion of both colo-rectal symptomatic and screening services and the continued roll-out of the bowel cancer screening programme.

The BowelScreen programme began offering free bowel cancer screening nationally to people aged 60 to 69 in 2012.

In the longer term, it is planned to extend the programme to those aged 55 to 74.

The Irish Cancer Society says its €1 million donation will be used to fund the improvement of endoscopy services in hospitals around Ireland. This, it said, would scale up volumes and capacity of endoscopy services and support the screening programme.