Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If the Senator wishes to question the people involved in the programme, he can do so. I know that across the health service we have large numbers of inappropriate referrals to specialist clinics which can give rise excessive volumes. It means that patients who need to be seen quickly are not. Therefore, inappropriate referrals are a risk and we should not be trying to get everyone into a specialist clinic when it is inappropriate for them to be there. The Senator will have read from some media coverage and academic reports that there is a difficulty with young women with breast pain and no other symptoms being referred inappropriately to specialist clinics. That is why referral protocols are put in place to give doctors appropriate guidance on how they should handle patients, how and who they should refer to specialist clinics and when. Those guidelines are not drawn up by politicians but by the national cancer control programme in co-operation with the Irish College of General Practitioners, as is entirely appropriate.

In terms of the other question raised by the Senator, I do not have an up-to-date briefing on the matter. It was not the topic he raised so I cannot give him an update on it today.