Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

During the course of Covid-19 and for a bit before it, my family had experience of cancer. My husband had to have surgery at the height of the pandemic and it was terrifying. Having surgery any time is not great but it was very scary because we were worried about how Covid would be dealt with. The staff were fantastic but we could tell that it was not an ideal environment. The capacity was not there. How many times did the Minister and I have conversations about the lack of capacity in the health service and the urgent need to build capacity? That was before a pandemic took away much of the capacity.

I am absolutely and forever grateful to the staff at Beaumont Hospital and my husband's GP for the vigilance, compassion and fantastic care they gave him, and he came through it. He would tell the Minister, and I can tell the Minister, they are operating in circumstances that are not just less than ideal but severely constrained. These are people who are at the absolute top of their game. Every single one of the healthcare workers in the cancer section in Beaumont Hospital is absolutely amazing but they feel they are constantly in a battle with the system. They feel they are constantly fighting because they are not getting the resources they need. On the one hand they get the plámás and are told they are fantastic, and they might get a round of applause every once in a while and everybody knows how important they are and how important the work they do is, but they do not feel they are being supported because they do not get the resources they need. The motion is about putting these resources to place and ensuring avoidable and preventable cancers are caught and treated. The person whose cancer is caught and treated goes back to work and does not have to go to the health service again, thankfully, and, touch wood, I hope not ever, and is back working and paying tax. This is what it should be about. This is what the motion is about. It is about ring-fencing the money.

I remember when the national cancer control programme was set up. There was much consternation at the time about how it would work if the money was moved out and was not centrally controlled, and whether it was a power grab by one doctor or another. The thinking in Government at the time was that the funding had to be ring-fenced because cancer was too important and we could not miss it. It was something we could actually beat and meet it head on with a screening programme and ensure people were caught, treated, turned around and put back in the system. That was the thinking at the time. All we are asking for it now is cross-party support for the ring-fenced funding so the brilliant men and women in our cancer care services can get on with doing the work they do and cure people wherever it is possible, catch it quickly and get them back into work and into society.

See this speech in context