Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, I commend Deputy Cullinane on tabling this motion. We always recognise that many people in our communities and families have had the devastating news of a cancer diagnosis and have experienced the trauma of that. There is no family across the country that is not touched by that. Of course, we recognise that great work is being done by many people in our health service to try to make things better and, in many cases, there are very good outcomes.

We had a cancer strategy in 2017, and the then Government put it in place. We all recognise that everyone was on board. This was going to be something that could turn things around for what was up to then and probably still is, unfortunately, the devastating situation in our cancer services around the country. Yet, the reality is that the Government refused and failed to fund that adequately. It has only gotten the funding in two of the past seven years, and we then wonder why we do not have the outcomes. When the Minister of State was speaking, she spent a long time on how good things are and about the good outcomes, etc. Let us imagine if the Government had gotten had gotten the proper funding how much better it could have been. That is the reality that most people are recognising here. The Government is not putting the funding in place. It is not providing the kind of service that is required to ensure we can look after people properly across the State.

With regard to staff vacancies, almost one-third of the radiotherapy posts are vacant. Let us think about what impact that will have on people who are on waiting lists and waiting for treatment. There is all this very expensive equipment that is lying idle in various hospitals around the country, as well as the impact that has on patients. There is also the impact it has on the psychological aspect that cancer patients and their families are going through. They know that there is the potential out there for life-saving services to be provided to them, but they simply have not been funded. That is devastating and the Minister of State needs to take a long, hard look at this situation. It is simply not acceptable to continually spout off all kinds of statistics about how great things are-----

See this speech in context