Ms Averil Power:

Sadly, today's report is not news to us as it has long been established that those inequalities exist. Ms Morrogh mentioned, for example, that it is much more likely that people from disadvantaged areas will have their cancer picked up in an emergency department. I also mentioned that there are higher rates of smoking in disadvantaged areas. Some 25% of lung cancers are picked up in emergency departments and it is often people from poorer backgrounds who are being diagnosed with a hard to treat stage 3 or stage 4 lung cancer that will almost certainly take their lives. The prognosis is not good when it is picked up that late.

As Ms Morrogh said, we can desensitise these issues but it is horrifying to think that in 2023, in one of the most well-off countries in the world, people are dying of cancer just because they are poor. Statistics have been published to show that people are three times more likely to get and die of cancer in Mulhuddart than they are in Castleknock. Those two areas are side by side but people have radically different outcomes, primarily because of their income and, as the Deputy said, access to diagnostics. It is not good enough. We are also deeply worried that today's figures relate to 2018. We have no doubt that the differential, that 28% higher mortality rate in 2018, is much higher now because of what we have picked up about the widening inequality due to the impact of Covid-19.

Our services are much more difficult for everybody to access right now, but this is especially true for those in disadvantaged communities. We are very worried it is actually much worse than the picture painted in the report.