Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In Ms. Power's opening statement, she noted, "We are in the Stone Age when it comes to collecting real-time information on cancer services." My question for Ms Power and the other representatives on the panel is this: do the cogs that were put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic have a purpose beyond the pandemic? I have seen the European Medicines Agency, EMA, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, the WHO, Médecins sans Frontières and international entities over and beyond our own HSE in Ireland that are all communicating. The cogs of the wheel are working together. Smart pharma is engaging directly with the HSE and briefing it. It seems all of the cogs have come together during the crisis. The pandemic has been like our Blitz. We are in war mode, as it were. It seems there is great cohesion and co-operation internationally on the issue. Should some of those cogs remain in place, at least domestically, after we have rolled out the mass vaccination programme? Should some of these big cogs that have been additions to our regular HSE capacity remain in place to achieve a heightened roll-out of the national cancer screening programme to get more people in, so that niggling pains are checked out, screened and we detect and treat more cancers? I ask members of the panel of witnesses to respond.