Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to discuss specifics. The report contains a lot of generalities and part of that is because we do not have good data. A lack of good data holds everybody back and is a major problem within the health service. Earlier I posed the same question to the Irish Cancer Society and was told that two standout issues affect low-income communities when it comes to cancer services: low uptake of screening and difficulty in accessing diagnostics. Notwithstanding what has been said about some improvements being made in that area, the reality is that there is a push within the health service to direct people into private diagnostics and thus skip the queue. Of course one must have the money to pay for private diagnostics. Does Professor Ó Laoide accept that both of those issues are significant in respect of the failure to address the disparity in cancer services based on income? What, if anything, is being done to tackle those two specific issues?