Ms Eibhlin Mulroe:

I thank the committee for the invitation to appear before it today. I am from County Monaghan in the Border region, so this means a lot to me. Having gone to college in the North and lived in Dublin, I know the importance of working together on this island. We have a long history of working together on this island when it comes to cancer. For 20 years, clinicians on this island, and Professor Lowery could talk to this as well, have worked on cancer trials in particular. Very often, people do not really know what means. I represent Cancer Trials Ireland, which is opening clinical trials in hospitals across the Border because, as Professor Lawler said, cancer has no borders. We are giving patients opportunities to access treatments, innovations, devices and radiotherapy within a hospital environment. One might say "So what? What does that mean?" It changes the conversation between the oncologist and the patient from "There is nothing more I can do. Go and sort out your affairs" to "We have an opportunity here for a clinical trial". That is the reality of clinical trials. Under the cancer strategy, we have a target of 6% in the Republic of Ireland. To do that, we need to do more and we need more investment. That is why we are here today. Northern Ireland is in exactly the same position. We have a great tradition of working from a patient perspective where patient advocates have worked together North and South on how best patients can be involved in these decisions around their treatment and as scientists. I came in today wearing the US-Ireland badge. Professor Patrick Johnson from Queen's University Belfast had a huge part to play in the memorandum of understanding that was signed. He made the Good Friday Agreement about cancer. When it was signed, the National Cancer Institute did something amazing. The US trained our investigators and clinicians to do more, so even though we do not have enough medical oncologists in Ireland - we have 40 where we should have about 80 - a lot of them have been trained in the US and a lot of them bring that dimension to our hospitals North and South so I think there is significant scope.