Dr. Jerome Coffey:

I am happy to take both of those questions. On the recruitment of professionals, I have not seen that as a real issue in the context of cancer specifically. This is probably because there is evidence of and a sense that cancer services and the environment in which cancer specialists work as a result of significant investment on the part of the State. Bringing people back has not proven to be a problem. A recent example of which I am aware is my replacement as a radiation oncologist in the St. Luke's network. Two or three posts were advertised and interviewed for at the same time. There were 11 or 12 applicants for three posts. That is a ratio one does not see very often in other posts in the service, which says a great deal.

In the context of other health care professionals, we depend increasingly on our health care nurses in oncology. Our external panel, which I mentioned, has commented on that. In the past couple of years, through the service planning of the HSE, we have focused on this and put money into training advanced nurse practitioners in oncology. We are filling those posts. We have community oncology, education posts and the national cancer control programme, so we are providing training and job opportunities at the end of it to ensure that these become attractive areas of the health service in which to work.

I take the Senator's point on prevention. This country led the world with the introduction of the ban on smoking in the workplace. That was for a particular age group. More broadly, Healthy Ireland has been a very high-profile initiative and the cancer control programme contributes to that. We have a cancer prevention element within the cancer control programme and my understanding, from the cancer strategy steering group's work, is that this would be developed. It is probably necessary at this point to engage formally with the Department of Education and Skills on the strategy to see how we can contribute to the curriculum at primary, secondary and third level.