Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to facilitate statements and a debate on the future of Moneypoint in the first week that we are back in September. Staff in Moneypoint are currently engaging with management and their unions about job losses. It is quite serious. What will happen in the future to Moneypoint? The ESB has committed to coal burning there until 2025 but much more importantly, what will happen post 2025? The Minister will have eight or nine weeks over the summer to prepare for this debate and I encourage the Leader to facilitate it.

I was at a briefing in Buswells, hosted by a former colleague, Averil Power, who is now CEO of the Irish Cancer Society. If Members have not been there already, I encourage them to go there. While we have achieved much related to cancer care, especially with the centres of excellence and the fact that so many people survive cancer, there are still many challenges. Some of the requests the Irish Cancer Society has in its pre-budget submission are very reasonable. One is a reduction to a €100 limit for people under the drugs payment scheme. It is looking for an upgrade to and moving forward of trials, the people covered and the funding available. As we will all have experienced in our offices, it is critical that when people are diagnosed with cancer, a more lenient approach should be taken by the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, when allocating medical cards for treatment. It is extremely traumatic and distressing for a person to have cancer and the last thing that he or she should be worried about is whether he or she will get a medical card. In the upcoming budget in October, the Minister needs to do something to make it easier and more flexible for medical cards to be provided to people who are diagnosed with cancer.