Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)

I understand that. It is true. The population is growing by 90,000 a year so we have another million to look forward to in the next 12 years.

Another issue concerns me. The national cancer strategy was a huge success. It took considerable political capital to deliver it to divest some hospitals of cancer care and to centralise it. Now we are seeing decentralisation again. I do not doubt that the regions will try to provide the best services it can but we know in the west of Ireland that we do not get all the resources that we should, and that is a fact. Mr. McCallion stated that the CCP will have "a primary role in the planning of cancer services, enabling performance oversight". We know that unless someone has budgetary input and executive control, those models do not work. How does he see see that relationship working? That is for Mr. McCallion and Mr. Canavan.