Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My final question relates to outcomes from this meeting. There are a number of things we as a committee will do. We tend to hop from one crisis to another in respect of many issues, but we considered which ones we had not covered as a health committee. Members were asked what their priority was and agreed on endometriosis. There are clearly advocates among the committee on the witnesses' behalf in respect of this disease, which affects so many women in Ireland. As a committee, if we can work with the witnesses as we move forward, there are certainly questions we can ask the Minister and the Department regarding what is happening. Clearly, we can seek an update on the framework, given it was rolled out in March, but there are other issues. It would be useful to hear about the question of blood tests and the research on that. If moves are happening elsewhere in the world in that regard, that is something we could look at.

A lot of research needs to be done. That women have been suffering in relative silence for years is in itself a scandal, as is the scale of the issue, at up to 250,000 women. Again, that is something we as a society need to look at seriously. Our health system, for all its faults, can come up with solutions for this. Challenges have faced us in respect of cancers, and while there remain huge challenges in that regard, we have got our act together in regard to much of our response. There are still faults within the system but, as with cancer, if we specialise, look at best practice in other jurisdictions and upskill our clinicians and so on, there can be positive outcomes for the population.

I wish the witnesses well. Is there anything else they wish to put on record or ask us as a committee to do? We can certainly help them with funding opportunities and so on, which we will discuss privately as members.