Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

A lot of work remains to be done. Professor Keane has set targets of completing 50% of the transition by the end of next year and 90% by the following year. That is an ambitious programme but I believe he will have buy-in from the clinical community. Those who have chosen to be specialists in cancer care want to work in centres where they can pursue their clinical passions with like-minded colleagues. In the area of breast cancer, for example, I understand 70 surgeons currently performbreast cancer operations whereas we probably only need 12. Clearly, most of the surgeons who are generalists rather than breast cancer specialists will transfer to general surgery.

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