Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject, which is important not just to everyone here in the House, but also to every family in Ireland. I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, on his appointment. This is my first time speaking to him in the House; best of luck to him.

The cancer strategy we have is a good strategy. I think everybody agrees that we should be proud of the strategy as written on paper. Where we are running into trouble is that the implementation of that strategy leaves a lot to be desired. There are many reasons for that. One of the biggest reasons is that, as the Irish Cancer Society has pointed out, we need to have a multi-annual funding mechanism that will allow for cancer treatment and the strategy itself to be developed to meet the demand. Second, we need to make sure that we quantify the resources we require so that we can actually put them in place. Earlier we heard that equipment is being left unused. Some very expensive equipment is only being used on a part-time basis. It is very inefficient to spend a large amount of capital money on equipment and then just use it for perhaps 40 hours a week. We need to deal with that and we need to ask why we allow this kind of thing to continue to happen.

I will give a small example. Last week, we got an X-ray facility, which is a simple thing nowadays, set up in the primary care centre in the Tuam. The equipment was bought four years ago was left in a room because there were problems trying to get a room built into what we call a lead-lined X-ray facility. That is just a small example of how long it takes us to get infrastructure developed. That is the crime that we are committing. We have created this huge process by which we talk about everything, we invite in a lot of consultants and pay them dearly to tell us things that we already know we want. I mean consultants like environmental consultants, planning consultants and all that type of thing.

I will give a good example and in the west. University Hospital Galway serves 1 million people in the region from County Donegal right down to County Clare. It is showing the worst results in terms of cancer treatments. It is supposed to be a centre of excellence under all of our strategies as written on paper. Everybody agrees that the infrastructure is not there to deal with the services we are supposed to provide. People are coming from Donegal in ambulances and taxis to get their treatment in Galway. We do not think it out right. We need to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place.

Everybody, including those in government, wants to make it happen. The board has been set up to try to deliver what is needed for Galway. If we are going to deliver it in the same timeframe as it took to deliver an X-ray facility in Tuam, we will not see it for 40 years. I estimate it will need an investment of €1.5 billion. People will say that is an awful lot of money, but for the people of the west it is not. It is their right to have access to services they require.

We need to get on with the job of delivering everything that is required, including a new accident and emergency unit, a new maternity unit, a new paediatric unit and a new cancer care centre. People who have visited, including many Ministers for Health, including the current Taoiseach, all agree that the facilities there are not fit for purpose. In five years, we will not be surprised to hear on the news of issues relating to the delivery of cancer services in Galway or any other services to the people in the west. It will be worse than what we are talking about in Limerick unless we take corrective action now. It is a regional economic issue. People should have a right to the same access to cancer services and the same chance of survival in the west of Ireland. I want to give that message to Government.

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