Mr. Donal Buggy:

Upon the shutdown of the country in mid-March, the Irish Cancer Society immediately extended its nurse helpline services to seven days a week with longer hours in the evening. That was intended to address the distress we were hearing on our phone lines on a daily basis. We were also in a position to very quickly start a new remote counselling service to step into the breach where the usual psychology services were not available. That has been a very successful programme. We have linked up with Cancer Care West and the National Cancer Control Programme to provide psychological and psychiatric assistance to those services. That has been really valuable. More than 150,000 patients have used that service to date. As lockdown eases, we are finding that distress is increasing among cancer patients, many of whom continue to cocoon or remain very concerned about the impact of infection on them. We have also had lots of conversations with parents of children with cancer who are extremely concerned about their children contracting Covid-19. They are also very concerned about their children's development, their treatment, and how their families will cope with the challenges of continued isolation. This issue is growing. Rather than a decreasing psychological impact as we move through the phases of reopening, we are seeing increased distress and an increased number of people calling our services to seek psychological help and support. That will continue in the future.