John Crown (Independent)

The second item I would like the Deputy Leader to bring to the attention of the Minister for Health and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and to any of my Seanad colleagues who may be from Cavan, is that there is another wholly unsung heroine of Irish science, Dr. Mary Patricia Cole, born in Cavan and educated in Carrickfergus, Portrush, Coleraine High School, Methodist College and Queen's University, Belfast. Following her bachelor of science and after a period of teaching, she went back to do a medical degree and then moved to the Christie hospital in Manchester as one of the first clinical oncology cancer treating doctors in the United Kingdom or, indeed, anywhere in the world, and there did the first trial with a drug called tamoxifen, which has probably saved or extended the lives of many millions of women around the world. Dr. Cole, following her retirement, became heavily involved in the hospice movement and, when she was at a great age, finally retired back to her beloved Northern Ireland - her beloved Ireland - dying in Newcastle some seven or eight years ago.

It strikes me that this lady, born in Cavan, who went on to make such a major contribution internationally in medical research should in some sense be memorialised, perhaps in Cavan and perhaps in Cavan hospital. We memorialise people for all kinds of reasons in Ireland but these are two very fine researchers who blazed a great trail and whose efforts in many ways have not been exceeded by anybody else.