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

I was conscious of some of the information received, included that there are 23,000 diagnoses of invasive cancer on a yearly basis. It was also said that 61 new drugs were introduced in recent years. I was impressed that there were 61, but the witnesses said we are the second slowest in Europe, which is worrying. It is a positive message for anyone in the service, that new drugs are coming all the time and that those who have a particular type of cancer and might have received a death sentence a few years ago, have real hope. The frustrating thing is the fact that drugs are probably available in other jurisdictions that would save the lives of people who are currently in our system. That is the wake-up call for us all. It is something we can possibly take up with the HSE.

One area we have not really focused on - and the expansion of screening was mentioned - is a worry that came up previously with regard to the scandal over cervical cancer and the samples being sent abroad. We have not touched on it this morning. That is still happening and it was made worse during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of those samples were being sent abroad and I think they have a limited shelf-life. Is it still the pattern that the majority of the samples are being sent abroad for various types of screening? How much of it is happening in Ireland? There was worry that we did not have the infrastructure in place. Perhaps the witnesses could spend a minute or so talking about that.

I was talking to someone about bowel cancer recently, who possibly needed to get an endoscopy or colonoscopy. The person got the test and was told that it would be six to eight weeks for the results. That seems like a huge amount of time.

Deputy Gino Kenny was talking about the impact of being told. The impact of not being told is equally difficult for people. There are a couple of issues that have not been touched on. What are the witnesses' views on those? It would be interesting for the next group that comes in to have that information.

On the screening, what area do the witnesses think is the easiest to address? Is it bowel cancer or in other areas? Men would say that the amount of screening for men in the services is quite limited. Would the witnesses look to expand services for prostate cancer or some other areas? There are a number of questions there for whoever wants to take them.