Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

This is a very important debate. Men are slower to go to doctors than women, especially men on their own. I know that when men have wives and partners, they see after them and make them go. Men are tough and they persevere with pain, and they often let themselves go. I have known of too many cases where they waited too long, and they were at stage 4, where little could be done for them. I saw a man who eventually jumped out of his machine and sought help, but it was too late. He stayed at it too long. He was a great man.

There are fellows milking cows and even younger men who are waiting to be called in the public system. What I say to those fellows who are waiting is this: if the wait is too long when something important is diagnosed by their GP, they should put their hands in their pockets themselves. There is no one as badly off as that. Maybe they are leaving it after them and minding it for someone else. That is a mistake. If they have it at all and if the wait on the public list is too long, they should do it. We all decry having to wait because people should be seen after medically, whatever about anything else. Men have to take it upon themselves to see after themselves first.

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