Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach has described how we will have fewer centres providing cancer services. He has not said how these remaining eight or nine centres will be better. That is what the public wants to know about. For the past week or more we have been speaking about centres of excellence, and the expectation is that these will be better facilities than we have currently. How will they be better?

For example, last week it was announced that the service in Mullingar was to be discontinued and patients would be transferred to the Mater Hospital. What has happened in the Mater that will lead to a better service? Has it received extra equipment as a result of this? Will there be extra staff or is it just a case of the hospital having extra patients? How will the service be better in hospitals that will simply have extra patients?

The Taoiseach noted Professor Keane is due to start on 1 January. What budget will he have to provide the new and better services people are being led to believe will be provided? The difficulty is that there is now a general concern about the quality and availability of cancer care services, and there is a programme to reduce the number of centres where such services are being provided. This is being led on the basis that there will be centres of excellence but how will these centres be better?

Is this just a rationalisation of the number of centres and a reduction in the number of centres without the service in the larger centres necessarily being better?

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