Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome and fully support this motion. One of the biggest mistakes of this whole pandemic has been that so many key, life and death services have been stopped by the previous Government and have been kept closed by this Government. For the past number of months we in Aontú have consistently called for the reopening of the health services. We have said over and over again that these services must return.

Back in June I raised it with the then Minister, Deputy Harris, and when I asked him, he confirmed to me that he was aware of and supported the decision to cancel cancer screening services in March. This was not some kind of mistake or aberration. Cancer screening was cancelled under the authority and permission of the former Minister for Health.

Whenever I ask the Government about concerns over the present level of non-Covid-19 mortality rates, the response is always to go to the health service. What is the point in sending people to the health service when many of those services have either been paused or stopped? It was ludicrous that, right through the lockdown, we had a situation where the HSE continued to advertise cancer screening online even though those services were not in operation. Many people who were worried about cancer felt that they were being pushed down a cul-de-sac.

For months I have been asking the previous Government and the present one the cost in mortality and morbidity of the cancellation of services. For months the Government has been giving me the equivalent of a political shrug. Just a week ago the Taoiseach organised a meeting of party leaders, NPHET, and the CEO of the HSE. Again I put those questions to these individuals. I was told a week ago that I would have an answer, but there is no answer as of yet to those questions.

Will the Minister of State address why the Government has not sought to investigate the cost in terms of mortality and morbidity of the cancellation of services? In Britain it was estimated that 35,000 people would lose their lives to cancer due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet nobody in this Government has thought it worthy to carry out such an investigation here. The fact that mortality and morbidity associated with the closure of these services remains an enigma to this Government is a national disgrace. I regularly hear the HSE, NPHET and the Government say that they are making these decisions on the basis of scientific evidence and all of the information. If, however, a significant portion of the equation of the excess mortality that is happening now, which is the cancellation of these services, is ruled out, and if even investigating, analysing or understanding it is ruled out, then those decisions are simply not being made on the basis of all the facts and the science necessary at this time.

It is interesting that the current Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, was also asking these questions along with me when he was on this side of the Chamber. Unfortunately, the voice of the Minister has become silent on these issues.

According to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, in its latest report, Covid-19 has caused between 850 and 900 excess deaths in Ireland in the five months from the start of March to July. These are deaths that have occurred that would not have occurred in that period of time. This is a figure which is down from 1,072, which was the original reported excess deaths level and is obviously much lower than the 1,700 deaths that have been reported in the media every day.

Covid-19 is a serious threat which we have to take seriously. We must all do what we can to reduce the number of deaths that occur because of it. Cancer is a significant threat. Some 9,000 people die of cancer every year. We have to take it seriously and we need to do absolutely everything we can to ensure that we reduce and prevent those deaths.

As has been mentioned in the Chamber a number of times, there are very few people here who have not been touched either personally or indirectly by cancer. Just eight weeks ago I received one of those phone calls which people do not want to receive, which was to say that I had skin cancer. It said that I had a mid-sized melanoma tumour in my scalp and, luckily, or maybe unluckily, because of the severity of the issue that I had, I was lucky enough to get timely treatment by fantastic doctors and nurses. I owe them so much for that. Since then I have had two operations on my scalp and a big chunk has been taken out. My four-year-old son said to me that my head looks like it has caved in. I said that sometimes it feels that it has caved in, to be honest. We are on the road to recovery, thankfully, because of all of that treatment.

Not everybody in that situation is so lucky. I have been speaking to doctors throughout the country and many people who are cancer symptomatic are not getting the treatment that they need. Many are suffering significantly delayed diagnosis and treatment. The medics I have been speaking to are saying that some of their patients are simply not going to make it. That is a startling and shocking thing. They are also victims of this Covid-19 crisis and should be treated equally in this whole process to ensure that they have equal access to healthcare.

With cancer, timely treatment is of the essence. Nobody should be waiting months for chemotherapy. We should strive to abolish waiting lists altogether. Imagine the number of lives we would save in this country if we did that. Screening does save lives. Early detection and treatment does save lives. What I find mind-blowing at the moment is that in September 2020, a person can get a haircut but cannot get a BreastCheck screening or have a face-to-face consultation if he or she has a mental health issue. A person can be in the physical space of somebody to get his or her hair done but cannot be in the physical space of somebody to carry out something that is perhaps an existential threat to that person's life. That has to change. It shows the confusion of priorities of the Government currently when that happens.

A date for the budget has been set. This is a real opportunity for the Minister of State personally and for the senior Minister in this Department, since this is the first budget where he will be a Minister. It is a test as to whether all that he said in the years that he spent on this side of the Chamber have been talk or whether there is substance to it.

There are a couple of issues that are related that I wish to raise. The first concerns Mary Bartley Meehan. Mary is a constituent of mine in County Meath, and she tragically lost both her son and her husband to Covid-19 in a nursing home in my county just a number of months ago. I am slow even to discuss her particular case because it is so shocking but it is important to discuss it. Her husband had terminal cancer and his face became infested with maggots by the time he was brought to a hospital. I do not say that for shock tactics but because Mary, in the past couple of weeks, has looked at a video recording of that situation that her husband was in. The reason she looked at that video recording was because she said that she had to know the full information for her to be able to fight for her husband. She is fighting. "Golfgate" was serious, but nobody has resigned or lost his or her job nor has there been any investigation for Mary Bartley Meehan. It is just mind-blowing that this is what happens in Ireland. I ask the Minister of State, if he can, to take the bull by the horns on this issue to ensure that Mary is not pushed around from Billy to Jack any longer in this.

I also wish to raise the issue of CervicalCheck. In recent days it has emerged that the governor of Florida is ordering state agencies to break ties with Quest Diagnostics after that lab mistakenly delayed the reporting of results of nearly 75,000 Covid-19 tests. It sounds familiar - delays, mistakes, and IT glitches. I have spoken to Sharon Butler Hughes, the woman who triggered the MacCraith report last year, and she is calling for the reopening of testing. The MacCraith report recommended that we put women first. The outsourcing of cancer screening does not put women first.

We need to see funding used towards accrediting our laboratories here in Ireland so that we do not have to rely on laboratories abroad, which had the reputation of repeatedly making mistakes. This is another issue in the Minister of State's grasp. She should use the opportunity available to her.

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