Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Irish Cancer Society told us yesterday that up to 30,000 cancer cases are being diagnosed in the State each year. This is a significant number in a country of just over 4 million. The society tells us that the numbers are increasing and that, in the next 12 years, we may face a cancer epidemic. On several occasions before Christmas we had exchanges in this House about cancer treatment and things that went wrong in cancer treatment. There was the sad and tragic case of Susie Long, known to radio listeners as Rosie, as well as the case of the women in Portlaoise who were given the all-clear for breast cancer and then were called back for re-examination. There were several other cases of misdiagnosis.

On each occasion that we raised these issues with the Taoiseach and the absent Minister for Health and Children, the answer we were given was that investigations were under way, reports would be presented and that we could not get answers to what went wrong in these cases until we had the reports. Five such investigations are still under way. These are the Dr. Ann O'Doherty report into the cases of suspected breast cancer misdiagnosis in Portlaoise, which was to have been completed by the end of November but is still not published; the review by John Fitzgerald into the circumstances surrounding the release of information on the misdiagnosis of breast cancer in Portlaoise, which is still not completed; the report by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, on the circumstances surrounding the misdiagnosis in the case of Rebecca O'Malley, which was due to be published in December but has not yet been produced; the report by HIQA of a review of pathology services at University College Hospital, Galway, in the wake of another breast cancer misdiagnosis where a woman was twice wrongly given the all-clear, which is still not completed; and the internal report by Cork University Hospital regarding the appointment of a pathologist despite the fact that his work was subject to two reviews in Finland.

These five reports are still ongoing and have not been produced. There have been no answers for the patients concerned, their families and the wider public. When will these reports be produced and published and answers provided to the questions we first raised last October and November?

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