Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It is possible to use mobile units but treatments such as radiation oncology are best carried out in national hospitals and some private hospitals, which also provide the treatment. The mobile centres are not very expensive, but the main accelerators cost several million euro. These are based in the hospitals as are the other back-up services such as medical oncology and the consultants in radiology, histology and haematology. To be successful they need to have experience of dealing with a large number of cases. The mobile clinics are used for screening purposes only and patients must be referred to hospital centres. Resources are used to build up national centres of excellence that can deal with a critical mass of patients. I acknowledge that our success rate is not at the level of the rates in the United States where screening is continually undertaken, but our rate has improved dramatically in the past decade.

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