Ms Eibhlin Mulroe:

I am conscious of the time. I thank Senator Currie for raising the issue of talent. She asked about the gap that is there. I talked about the fact that we had only 40 medical oncologists when we need 80. It is probably the same with radiation oncology, haematology and surgery, all the disciplines involved in cancer research. Attracting people in is a challenge throughout medicine. We have heard about it a lot. People will be attracted into this country if what Professor Gallagher, Professor Lawler and Professor Lowery have talked about is provided, namely, a research-rich environment. The people at the top of their game in medical oncology want to work in a research-rich hospital. We have had rows of our graduates go abroad and work in amazing cancer research institutes in the US, Australia and Canada and they have not all come home. They have that capability and knowledge. Let us look at that and at training. Let us pick the low-hanging fruit and look at developing that relationship with the National Cancer Institute. Professor Lawler and I were on the phone to the institute the day after Ned Sharpless spoke to President Biden. We are Irish on this island. We have the ability to network. It is in our DNA.

I think about some of the trials we are running. We have investigators on one prostate cancer trial which is run by a group called the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group, ANZUP. We are opening the trial in Ireland and the UK, including in Belfast. The investigators, that is, the doctors, are in Harvard, Canada and Australia. Two of our investigators, Professor Ray McDermott and Dr. Paul Kelly, have trained and worked with these people when they were placed in other hospitals abroad. It is that network. We are really good in cancer research at bringing that knowledge home for the benefit of the people here and our patients. That is really important to say. We were asked why we have done so well so far. The one thing about the cancer community is that its members work together. It is a grassroots movement in a way among cancer researchers and oncologists. You cannot just create that or fund that. It naturally happens within this space. We are here today all representing different organisations. There are ten institutions behind this all-island collaboration that we are here to discuss. That in itself says a lot, and not every country can replicate what we are doing here in cancer research.