John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I wish to share time with Deputies Ferris and Morgan.

A statistic which stands out with regard to cancer is that we are going to see a 90% increase in cancer rates over the next 15 years. That amounts to a cancer epidemic but we should not be surprised to hear that one in three people will have cancer or that the rate is rising continuously. It is no longer a case of saying that when people died in the past we did not know what killed them because we now have statistics dating back to the 1960s. It is clear from statistics published by the WHO that 80% of cancers are environmentally linked. That is a telling statistic. Sandra Steingraber wrote a seminal book on cancer, Living Downstream, in which she demonstrated clearly that our rising rates of cancer are linked to the increasing numbers of chemicals we are inhaling and using in our households. It is time we returned to first principles because cancer care is extremely expensive and it would make much more sense to address the root causes of this problem by studying factors such as our lifestyles, air pollution, the quality of our water, the food we eat and the household pollution which arises from the types of furniture and paint we use. The evidence leaves me in no doubt these factors are resulting in an increase in cancer rates. This Government will have to do a bit more joined up thinking on this issue.

We also should pay closer attention to the influence of the tobacco, alcohol and food industries instead of allowing reports to gather dust on shelves, such as those by the task forces on alcohol and obesity. These reports have not been implemented and it is unlikely they ever will because no concerted action is being taken by this Government. The Minister of State can shake his head but the consequences of alcohol consumption in this country cost us €2.65 billion per annum. With regard to health consequences, cancer and a wide range of other illnesses result from alcohol abuse. This Government kowtowed to the alcohol industry.

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