Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I am anxious to contribute to this debate and I am pleased the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, is present and it is significant that she is. Despite what has been stated across the floor I believe the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, has a great interest in this subject. I have known her for a long time and I have worked with her in my constituency and in the Dáil. Since becoming a Deputy I have had first-hand knowledge of the care she has shown with regard to this issue. She has worked closely on it with the Joint Committee on Health and Children, of which I am pleased to have been a member for the past six years.

I want to paraphrase Deputy Róisín Shortall who explained how cancer frightens her. Cancer also frightens me and as a small child it was the first disease of which I heard. While it has not affected me, thank God, I have carried the fear through my life. I have lost family members and young people I knew to it. In recent weeks, the Tallaght community was greatly upset by the passing of Margaret Farrell, a well-known former Fianna Fáil councillor. Every one of us will be affected by cancer at one time or another and we all care about this issue.

Today, I received several hundred communications at my constituency office, as I am sure did other colleagues. We have hardly done anything else except deal with them. I am always glad when people in my constituency contact me about issues. The Minister knows this is an issue in Dublin South-West as well as everywhere else.

I do not want to concentrate on my own constituency but on many occasions in this House I have spoken about Tallaght Hospital and the programmes there. The cancer report of 2007 issued by the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin highlighted in a special way the needs of my wider community as far as cancer services are concerned. To show it is not only about Tallaght, Tallaght Hospital's catchment area stretches through that part of Dublin and out to Kildare and Wicklow to the border at Carnew.

I take a great deal of interest in this issue and the Minister should know we are concerned about it. I am also concerned about the general delivery of cancer services in the Tallaght region. The Minister will know this debate is generating a great deal of attention. Many people are contacting us and I wanted to convey this to her. I wish her well as she deals with the issue.

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