Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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459. To ask the Minister for Health the amount of funding available to cancer trial research units in hospitals around the country; the amount of funding which is going to each cancer trial research unit in tabular form; if results from such trials are carefully reviewed; his plans to increase funds to such research; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29756/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Since 2005, the Health Research Board (HRB), a statutory agency under the aegis of my Department, has invested approximately €53 million in the development of a network of cancer clinical trials in hospitals across Ireland.

The aims of this initiative are to ensure that a significant proportion of patients have the option to participate in the latest clinical trials, to improve the quality of care and access to the latest therapies and to establish a coordinated approach to cancer trials.

The HRB funding is provided to Clinical Trials Ireland (CTI) to support clinical trials at hospital sites, as well as the CTI Group Central Office, and a Statistics and Data Management Office based in Galway. The HRB is committed to investing a further €8.995 million in Clinical Trials Ireland and €1.284 million in the Statistics and Data Management Office in the three years from 2016 to 2018.

The amount of funding provided to individual clinical trials units in hospitals is decided by CTI. These allocations vary from year to year depending on the progress of individual trials. Aside from the HRB, funding is also provided for clinical trials in hospitals by the pharmaceutical industry and voluntary organisations such as the Irish Cancer Society.