David Cullinane: Ring-fence €150m to Fix Cancer Care

I want to first of all move my motion and second of all I want to start by thanking all of those who work in our healthcare system who provide the very best cancer services that they can. I want to commend all of the nurses, the doctors, the radiographers, radiation therapists, those who work in primary and community care and those who provide diagnostic scans as well. So the problems that we have in the National Cancer Strategy are not down to the hard work that we see of staff and I have to say in terms of research in cancer care as well I'm blown away by what I see right across our healthcare system and also advances in new medications, a lot of which are actually produced here by pharmaceutical companies and by workers as well. So I just want to put that on the record first and my appreciation of all of those who work in our healthcare services who provide first class services to cancer patients. But the problem Minister is that in an area where we were doing so well and cancer care was seen as one of those areas where we were hitting our targets, people were getting rapid access to care, we're now beginning to see slippage and I have to say that really disappoints me. In parliamentary questions that I've tabled over the last year or so, but particularly over the last number of months, we're seeing slippage in relation to the key performance targets and the gold standard access times for either a diagnosis or chemotherapy or radiotherapy or indeed access to surgeries. And there's a number of reasons for that Minister, but first of all I just want to go through some of the figures. In 2025, 15% of chemotherapy and 23% of radiotherapy patients did not get access to treatment in the target timeframe. In 2025, 45% of breast cancer surgeries, 39% of lung cancer surgeries and 61% of prostate cancer surgeries were not done on time and people were not seen within the gold standard. They are shocking figures and they are a dramatic reduction in where we were only a number of years ago. And I've spoken to healthcare professionals, the Irish Cancer Society, advocates and indeed cancer patients themselves and they tell me that one of the problems is we don't have enough staff. So we know we have a shortage of radiographers, we know we have a shortage of radiation therapists, but we also have a shortage of surgeons in some hospitals as well, which is why we're seeing a postcode lottery. For example, in Cavan and chemotherapy, people are waiting much longer than they are in other areas and in Waterford, for example, the majority of patients were not seen within the proper timeframe. So when you have a postcode lottery and when it depends on where you live and it depends on the surgery and what access and how quickly you will get that service, I think that's unacceptable and it shows failure. So one of the problems is staff, that we don't have the staff. The second is the cancer machines and machinery and equipment. So right across the state, and again I got this through parliamentary questions, we have a lot of cancer equipment which is out of date. In fact, in some cases, in some hospitals, the majority of equipment is out of date. It could be chemotherapy equipment, radiotherapy equipment and diagnostic equipment. A lot of the time it's not functioning properly. Hospital equipment is at partial capacity, again because we don't have the staff, we don't have the radiographers, radiation therapists and so on. So when you have very expensive equipment, either lying idle or only operating at partial capacity, that's a problem. So the current national cancer strategy ends next year and in the last 10 years, in five of those years, the national cancer strategy received no additional funding and you can't operate in a piecemeal way like that. If you want the national cancer strategy to work, it has to be funded every single year consistently, which is why our motion is calling for a ring fencing of 30 million euro each and every year for the next five years. So 150 million euro. We also want to increase the capital budget in healthcare because we know you don't have enough money to build the elective hospitals, a new maternity hospital, finish the children's hospital, deliver the beds that were promised and that's why you don't have the money then to replace equipment and allow for new equipment for cancer care in hospitals and that's hurting. Our motion also calls for cutting the costs of cancer care for patients as well and that's a big issue which comes up a lot. We want to abolish the car parking charges but we also feel that cancer patients should have a medical card and sometimes cancer patients who apply simply don't get it, even though they have a cancer diagnosis and I think that's deeply unfair. When we all signed up to the principles of Sláinte care where money should not be an issue and people should have access to high quality care, it makes no sense years on from Sláinte care that cancer patients still don't have access to a medical card. So our motion today is a call for action from this government. We don't want half measures, we don't want slipped targets or slippage, we want a new national cancer strategy that's robust, that's properly funded and that works for cancer patients.