Ms Rachel Morrogh:

The Irish Cancer Society believes it is imperative to get screening services restored, and restored to the way they were before Covid-19. We know the environment is extremely challenging but consider the figures calculated by the Irish Cancer Society. Some 450 cancers have possibly been undetected to date and additional pre-cancers have been undetected. One can start to understand that without our screening programmes Ireland is missing a central plank in its cancer prevention and early detection strategies. If we do not restore the screening programmes to the high quality screening systems that were place before Covid-19 then we risk the general public's health and the chances they have of being diagnosed with cancer early. We know the importance of an early cancer diagnosis. If a person is diagnosed at an early stage then his or her chances of survival are so much better. Ireland is not doing well in cancer survival. Ireland is lower than the OECD average and we need to do much better. This is why the national cancer strategy sets out that blueprint for excellent cancer care, and why we as an organisation, and many other organisations, are extremely disappointed at the lack of momentum and funding behind that strategy.

We want the screening programmes to be restored as soon as possible. We are pleased that CervicalCheck is getting under way. For breast and bowel screening, there are people who, unfortunately, have cancer and do not know it. Until those screening programmes are restored, we are not giving them the best chance of detecting that cancer as early as it could be.