Professor Robert Landers:

I will take that question. In cancer care, we need to prioritise access to the diagnostics and surgeries that patients need. We must rapidly increase our diagnostic capacity in terms of radiology and laboratory specialties and improve theatre access for cancer surgeons.

We have to reopen our hospitals after Covid and the cyberattack, which will be very difficult. The cyberattack has set us back months, not weeks. It will take months to recover from the cyberattack in the context of diagnostic specialties.

In summary, we need to get over the immediate crisis of the cyberattack and the disastrous effect it has had, improve our capacity in terms of diagnostics, radiology, laboratories and endoscopy and increase our theatre access. There is no quick fix here but we must put a plan in place because, otherwise, we will be treading water for a long time. Our worry is we do not see a plan from the HSE or the Department of Health to get us out of this. We are available to discuss this with them but there seems to be no focus on how we will get out of this at a departmental level.