2026-01-22

8. Deputy Cathy Bennett asked the Minister for Health the waiting periods faced by people in counties Cavan and Monaghan to access cancer treatment, by number waiting and length of time; and the longest period a person waited for treatment in 2025. [5034/26]

I ask the Minister to set out the waiting times faced by people in Cavan and Monaghan to access cancer treatment, and to do so on the basis of the number of people waiting and the length of time for which they have been waiting. What was the longest period a person waited for treatment in 2025?

Cancer services in Ireland are organised on the basis of a centralised model of care rather than a per-county basis. That enables the specialists to support the specialist centres. There are eight designated adult centres, 26 systemic anti-cancer therapy centres and three public radiation oncology centres. While performance data is collected at each centre, it is not based on where the person lives; it is based on the performance of the centre. Patients from Cavan and Monaghan are referred to the most appropriate centre for their treatment. For cancers, this would almost certainly be the HSE Dublin and north east designated centres at the Mater hospital or Beaumont Hospital. It is their data that matters for the people in Cavan and Monaghan. As with all patient care, the goal is to provide services as close to home as possible. Patients requiring less complex treatments, such as systemic anti-cancer therapy - chemotherapy and immunotherapy - would access that at Beaumont Hospital, the Mater hospital, Cavan General Hospital, Connolly Hospital or Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. Oral chemotherapy is also being expanded for many patients in the community, including being delivered as close to home as possible. As the Deputy will be aware, there has been really significant investment in community supports for cancer patients, including in Cavan and Monaghan. Approximately €5.5 million is being provided to the Alliance of Community Cancer Support Centres and Services. Of course, Cuan Cancer Support Centre is a full member of the alliance. Crocus Monaghan is a new associate member, providing additional psychosocial and other important supports to cancer patients and their families in the local region. In terms of the waiting times in that region, my information is the performance of the systemic anti-cancer therapies and so on in that region is actually very good. It is actually close to or exceeding the targets nationally. The region is working quite well generally. It can always improve but it is working quite well generally. On the specific times and so on, we have to go on the KPIs generally and how they are set. There are many cases where somebody might be waiting a long time, not because of a failure to deliver the service but because of the complexity of their case and multiple different issues. It is important not to single out individual cases.

As we discussed earlier, the stress and anxiety that a cancer diagnosis can cause a person and their family is almost like no other. The fear and worry it can spread is excruciating. In Ireland, we are fortunate to have highly trained and passionate healthcare workers. We know that once people get into the system, they receive world-class care. Delayed treatment of cancer yields mortality. That simply is not acceptable. What timeline will the Minister commit to so that all cancer patients will receive the treatment they need when they need it? There have been numerous cases in Monaghan and Cavan where patients have been left in Cavan General Hospital for three or four weeks after getting a diagnosis without being transferred to Beaumont Hospital or the Mater Hospital. As we discussed earlier, it is about beds. Free up the beds in Cavan and move on the patients. They need the treatment and they need it urgently. I am asking the Minister today if she will give me a timeframe for patients to be moved on to receive their cancer treatment.

The timeline is the one we have all set in relation to the Sláintecare targets. We are all working towards that. As we discussed earlier, I would appreciate those specific examples so I can follow them up much better.

Yes.

Across 2025, in Beaumont Hospital, where many patients would be referred, 80% of urgent breast cancer referrals were seen within ten working days and 98% of the non-urgent referrals were seen within 12 weeks. It sounds so impersonal to talk about the metrics, but you have to look at how everybody is experiencing it and not an individual to see how we are doing over time. In December 2025, Beaumont Hospital increased its capacity for urgent outpatient slots by ten per day to try to clear any backlog. In addition, nearly 1,500 breast-imaging studies have been scheduled to be performed at evenings and weekends. We are trying to use all the resources we have, including the physical buildings and the diagnostic equipment in those buildings, in the best way. I have seen the new CT machine in Beaumont Hospital. I am assured by the region that it is an absolute priority to ensure the staffing is there for that in 2026.

The problem is that Fine Gael outlined the White Paper, The Path to Universal Healthcare, more than ten years ago. It was supposed to be completely implemented by 2019. The Minister announced a policy of the same name, with Sláintecare 2025+ tacked on, only last May. In a lot of ways, the Minister is still waiting to deliver the plan that was announced in 2014 and due for completion in 2019. Only two months ago, after the Minister's announcement, the Irish Cancer Society sounded the alarm that cancer delays are causing unavoidable deaths. Therefore, I ask the Minister today if she accepts that these waiting times are unacceptable. Does she accept that cancer delays are causing unavoidable deaths? Could we do more to improve that service?

I might separate that into two things. I do not know what I was doing ten years ago, or what the Deputy was doing ten years ago. I do not know what that has to do with anything. I do not know who wrote that for the Deputy as a political point.

But-----

If we could get to the reality of the delivery of cancer services, this Oireachtas agreed Sláintecare. I am here at the moment - there will be somebody after me, as there was somebody before me - to try to implement that and make sure we have a public system that meets people's needs as close to home as possible and in a timely way. We are making good progress with that. If the Deputy looks at our cancer strategies and how they have contributed to that, she will see that when the first cancer strategy was launched in 1996, the average five-year survival rate was 43%. In 2022, that rate was 65% and it continues to grow because of the way we have organised services in specialist centres. Now, we need to ensure we make people's lives easier when they get a cancer diagnosis, for example by ensuring they get the treatment as close to home as possible so they do not have to travel and by ensuring they get really good treatment. We are all working on that together. We can create politics, but I remind the Deputy that her own party's manifesto specifically committed to Sláintecare. I am not sure what that point is really.

I am just asking for action.