Carol Nolan urges vaccine clarity and cancer services reopening

In Leish Offaly, we have a tale that's almost like a tale of two cities. We have County Leish doing exceptionally well in terms of the low incident rate of COVID, while in County Offaly there's reports that there is concern. But what I'd like to say on that is we need to see the localised figures. It's not good enough just to give us figures for the county. And also we need to put it into context. We have 331 cases in Offaly. Over 14 days, but that's out of 75,000 or 77,000 people rather. So I just feel that these figures being churned out is, you know, it's creating a lot of fear and alarm in people. And I do believe that we just need to give them the facts and the context also. I mean, I am concerned and I do know that people are doing their best, absolutely doing their best. And businesses are at breaking point where they've done their best and put every single measure they could in place to ensure the safety of all. But also what I want to say is the rollout of vaccine has been less than satisfactory. I know I've received a huge volume of calls from people in Offaly who are very concerned. So I'm just wondering, would that be a factor as well? Without pointing the finger at communities, how about looking at the rollout of vaccine and how Offaly is faring compared to other areas? Because I feel that we are faring much more poorly than a lot of other counties and a lot of other regions. I'd also like to point out that I was contacted again by a very concerned parent of an adult with cystic fibrosis. I know I have sent correspondence on this issue. The adult in question has a number of other underlying issues in addition to cystic fibrosis. And the mother has corresponded with the HSC directly, as have I, and I have sent correspondence to your office. He has not yet received a date for his vaccination. And I just appreciate if you could give me some information on that so I can get back to my constituent. The next point I want to raise relates to cancer services. I know we had Professor O'Reilly during the week saying that the cancer services have been closed down and it's causing untold damage to people. Minister, I'd just like to ask you, is there any point, can we not have the cancer services going in tandem with the restrictions? Because Professor O'Reilly, who is an oncologist, has pointed out that we're going to see very high death rates of cancer patients in the next decade. And I just want to call on you and the government to open up the cancer services and please do all you can for these cancer patients and their families who are going through a dreadful time. I think we need to focus on the other health issues, Minister, not just COVID, but we can't let everything else go to rack and ruin and we cannot lose any lives, you know, more than we need to lose. And in terms of cancer patients, please do more in terms of the services. Okay, thanks, Deputy 그런데, and on before. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.