Professor Risteárd Ó Laoide:

As Deputy Burke said, infrastructure and staff are needed. The various units, whether it be radiation oncology, systemic therapies, surgical oncology or medical oncology, we have models of care for those and we are working and planning for the years ahead. An interesting development during the Covid pandemic this year was that radiation oncology units got access to data from the UK on hypofractionation. That has been shown to be equally as effective as the previous radiation therapy that took place. It allows patients to come in for either one day a week for five weeks or five days in one week and their radiation is completed. Access to that data allowed staff in those units to roll out that therapy and equivalent outcomes have been shown for people coming for treatment every day for up to four to six weeks. That was a significant advance during Covid. Another advance, for example, was the roll-out of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, which is a relatively new technique. Its roll-out was accelerated during Covid as it allows for a non-surgical alternative to treat smaller tumours. I am giving isolated examples of various developments that are taking place in the different specialties but we need to continue to fund this infrastructure, new technology and staffing.