Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I appreciate the sincerity and commitment of the Minister of State and the amount of work he has put into this. We have had a useful debate up to now. There have been suggestions, comments and criticisms, but they have been given from the point of view of recognising a challenge up to which we must face. We faced a similar challenge in 1948 in the form of TB. There was a national consensus that something had to be done, but one man, former Minister Noel Browne, grasped the nettle and stated that we had to solve the problem. It is amazing what can happen when a crusade such as this takes place. The Minister of State's heart is in the right place: the sincerity is there. We must make sure the nation is behind him and the Minister in order that we can actually do something about this.

There are some things over which the Government has no control. I met a very successful Japanese businessman some years ago. He impressed me and when I asked him how he succeeded when others did not, he said something I liked, namely, that "Whether you believe you can or you cannot, you are right". He was talking about business, but also about a game of tennis. He said that if one goes into something convinced one has no chance against the other side, one has not got a chance, but if one goes in believing one can win, one can win. All the evidence suggests that there is some link between one's commitment to succeed against something like cancer and one's success rate. Some people give up when they hear the bad news while others say they will beat it. I know a person who was diagnosed with cancer ten years ago. She lost her hair after going through chemotherapy, but she was determined to win and I believe that is why she succeeded. We do not know enough about medicine to know how this works – perhaps in ten or 100 years we will know a lot more – but there is a connection.

A publication from the Irish Cancer Society states that according to the most recent report of the National Cancer Registry, approximately 20,000 new cases of cancer are recorded annually in Ireland. The Minister of State disclosed that today. This means that one in three will develop cancer in the course of their lifetimes and one in four will die. The report also shows that the current survival rate in respect of cancer is only 43%. I know many people who assume that a diagnosis of cancer is the end. One of the jobs we can do in the House is to get across that this is not the case. There is a 43% survival rate. The Irish Cancer Registry says it is "only" 43%, but this is higher than many people expect. Very often a great deal of this is in the hands of individuals who say they can beat it. In other cases it is not.

The Irish Cancer Society further stated:

Despite these alarming statistics, there is still evidence that there are large numbers of patients, particularly elderly patients, with a cancer diagnosis who are not receiving appropriate cancer-directed treatment. There is also evidence that only 30% of people with cancer in Ireland receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment protocol, whereas the national average should be 50%.