Cancer Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

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.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-22