Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join Deputy Canney in wishing the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, the very best luck for the remaining term of the Dáil in his new role.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this very important motion. I very much welcome the opportunity to make some brief comments on it on behalf of the Regional Group. I commend and pay tribute to our healthcare workers working in this particular specialty - our surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation therapists, palliative care teams and everybody working on the support side. I want to pay tribute not just to their clinical skills but also to their humanity in interacting with patients when diagnosing cancer and also in interacting with the patients' families.

Some 42,000 cancers are diagnosed in Ireland every year. Unfortunately, one out of every two Members of this Chamber may encounter and interact with the services over their lifetime, which is a devastating statistic. Ireland has a disproportionately large incidence of cancer. We feel we should disproportionately allocate resources on that basis. From a demographic point of view, it is not reassuring. Our population is increasing and is ageing, meaning it is very likely that we will need more cancer-treatment resources.

As Deputy Canney said, we have an excellent strategy. It is the third strategy and the first two were good. This builds on them with the emphasis on prevention, early detection and effective treatment. That is exactly where we need to go. In many ways the hard work has been done. All the brain power has been expended, we have a plan and we just need to focus on implementation. There have been some positive elements. For instance, the smoking cessation strategy has been excellent. We have gone from 18% to 5% of children smoking now. Obviously, 5% is still too much, but there has been progress.

I was in Naas General Hospital on Friday when the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, showed up to open a new 11-bed isolation ward, the Swan ward. This shows that there is some progress, but judging by yesterday's letter by the 21 clinicians, that progress has stalled. It has stalled for a number of reasons but mainly due to funding. That should never be a reason for stalling progress. If anything, funding may be the easy part particularly in Ireland where we have a budget surplus. As we are putting €6 billion aside in a saving scheme this year, there should be no reason we cannot afford an extra €20 million.

I have questions to which the Minister of State might respond if he has time in his wrap-up at the end.

Will the Government publish a Supplementary Estimate for €20 million this year to fund the National Cancer Strategy 2017-2026? It will be money well spent. If it cannot, will it reprioritise some of the money already allocated to the health budget to focus on the national cancer strategy? Ideally, we should have multi-annual planning, as Deputy Martin Kenny mentioned. I am unsure what the resistance to multi-annual budgeting is. Perhaps the Minister of State could shed some light on that but it seems perfectly logical to me, if one is planning a programme, that one has a very predictable source of finance over a number of years so that they can be implemented properly.

The obvious question is what do we spend the extra €20 million on. First, it should be on colonoscopies. We know that the waiting lists are very long from a colorectal cancer point of view. If addressing this means mobilising private hospitals on a Saturday and Sunday, they are well capable of doing that extra work if they are refunded for it. That would be money well spent. Number one then is to tackle the colorectal-colonoscopy waiting lists.

Number two, as mentioned by Deputy Shortall, we need more radiation therapists. There is an issue with clinical placements but there is also an issue with university placements.

Number three is to focus on dedicated pathways. It should never be the case that cancer treatment is postponed or even cancelled because of a lack of theatre time, beds, or the pressures in the acute hospital system.

Finally - and I see one of the Minister of State's officials there and he may be kind enough to take a note of this - we need more primary care resources, particularly with GPs. This is an idea which has been mentioned a few times but we could probably capitalise on it. We know that many of our junior doctors go to Australia or New Zealand after their graduation. There is an Erasmus scheme on most college courses at the moment, whether one is doing business or engineering, where one is encouraged to go abroad for six or 12 months to gain extra expertise. We know that GP training pathways are four years long in Ireland at the moment. Is there any reason the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, cannot reach out to their counterparts in Australia and New Zealand to ask if we can send our trainees over there for six or 12 month period and that we have a reciprocal arrangement back in Ireland? It would certainly increase the stay-ability of our new GPs here in the country and prevent people from going to Australia and not coming back.

In summary then, will there be a Supplementary Estimate from the Government this year for the national cancer strategy and, if not, can we reprioritise healthcare spending to focus on that strategy? I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach.

See this speech in context