Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is powerful when we work together on a cross-party basis in this Chamber. When we have issues on which we all agree, there should be no need for discord or disunity.

This is no reflection on anyone but I can speak from experience when I say that when we laypeople, even though we are legislators, create and draft Bills, we never think they are going to be perfect. We always expect them to be enhanced and changed by the contributions of everybody here and all of the experts and officials in our Departments. That is the position we are in today. We have an unusual situation in that we will be finishing this Bill and adjourning early. However, we all know that we want the proper outcome whereby we have legislation on our books to allow cancer patients who, thankfully, have survived to get on with the rest of their lives without Ireland Inc. standing in their way. That is all I want to say. We have a consensus in the House and I expect there to be consensus in the Dáil on the objective of this particular Bill, which is to allow people to live their lives in a manner that affords them the dignity and respect of getting over and surviving that awful disease to which many people succumb. I fully support the Bill. I want to support it with the co-operation of the Department and the Minister of State, who we thank for being here today, and get it onto our Statute Book. We can improve the Bill but we need to get it onto the Statute Book as quickly as we possibly can.