Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to the Minister sending the figures to me. In those figures we know there was a fall of 4,000 in the number of cancer diagnoses in 2020. These are the figures that were given to us by the previous Minister for Health. That fall in cancer diagnoses happened because the Government shut down significant elements of the health service. It stopped the cancer screening processes during that time. This led to a number of people not having their cancers diagnosed in time, and those cancers developed into much more dangerous cancers. What is the Government doing to try to catch up and make sure those individuals get the necessary treatment? I myself had cancer of the skin at that time. I delayed going to the doctor at the time because I listened to the Government's narrative that, unless you were seriously ill, you should not go to the health service. Thank God I was one of the lucky ones to survive it. I am trying to find out how many people died as a result of the delayed diagnoses that happened as a result of the shutting down of the health services in large part in 2020?

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