Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the fact that the Minister has met with the clinicians. He will know that the clinicians have done a huge amount of work on this. They are really busy people, but they have an expertise and they really care about what is happening in the region. The truth is, as the clinicians have pointed out, if you live in that region and you are accessing the cancer services there, it is not the same as accessing them in another part of the country. We need to bring equity and fairness to the situation there. That is why the centre is so important. What concerns me is the number of hours that are lost because the beds are not available for the cancer patients. I do not know if any evaluations or studies have been done on the number of hours that are lost when there are consultants there but no beds are available to bring the patients in. Appointments are cancelled, sometimes at the last minute, because there are no basic beds there for patients.

See this speech in context