Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their comprehensive presentations which have been most informative. Chronic pain is not something people talk about much, other than in terms of migraine or pains in one’s arm or leg. It is not considered as serious as life-threatening illnesses.

It was stated in more than one of the presentations that the treatment of chronic pain costs €4.6 billion a year, more than the cost of treating cancer and diabetes combined. When people hear about cancer or diabetes they think of them as being life threatening whereas with chronic pain is just seen as someone having an ache or pain and it will go away. They do not attach the same level of seriousness to it. Ms Sexton said there was no pain specialist in 15 counties in the country. I find it unbelievable that people do not have anybody to go to, that they have to travel to Dublin, Cork, Galway or wherever for treatment and that it could take five years or eight years for a diagnosis.

Sometimes people come to our clinics who are out of work and are on jobseekers' payments. They might have chronic pain such as severe back pain or fibromyalgia but when they apply for their benefits even the medical assessors do not recognise the problem as a serious illness or something that will mean the person will be out of work for more than 12 months to 24 months. Such people find it difficult to obtain disability allowances or invalidity pensions.

Could the witnesses outline the services available in Britain and explain why they are so much better than ours? How could interaction with health care systems be less stressful than is the case currently? How do the services in this country compare with our EU neighbours? Could the witnesses outline some of the benefits of the European and Australian models?