Cancer Services
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny

I thank Senator O'Loughlin for raising this really important issue today. As she knows, I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, who cannot be here. The Senator has highlighted a really important issue. The Government is committed to improving cancer care, ensuring better prevention and maintaining improvements in cancer survival rates and timely access to treatments.
As the Senator said, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in Ireland. Almost 4,000 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in Ireland in 2025. Fortunately, under the national cancer strategies, survival rates for breast cancer have greatly improved. The most recent figures show a five-year survival rate of 87.5% for people diagnosed between 2019 and 2022, which we all really welcome. The stage of the diagnosis has a significant impact on survival rates and earlier diagnosis often leads to better outcomes.
The Minister, the Department and the HSE recognise that breast reconstruction surgery following treatment for cancer is an important part of a patient's recovery and should be accessible to everyone who wants to have it.
There is a wide range of treatments for breast cancer. Surgical options are discussed through the consultant with the patients to see what they want. Where surgery involves a mastectomy, options for reconstruction surgery will also be discussed. The reconstruction is often done at the same time as the mastectomy surgery, but it can be done at a later date. The HSE's national cancer control programme, NCCP, reports that access to services is affected by several issues. The surgery is a stand-alone procedure. It must be scheduled within the overall surgical capacity of the hospital and can be affected by unscheduled care and demand for theatre access. Surgeries can be lengthy and complex depending on the type of reconstruction taking place. Significant clinical and nursing expertise can be needed.
The implementation of the NCCP's hereditary cancer model of care, which was published in 2023, means that women who have an identified genetic predisposition can be referred to the specialist services to discuss risk reduction strategies, including preventable double mastectomies, which can include breast reconstruction based on a patient's preference. In 2023, the NCCP carried out a survey of cancer centres that looked at waiting times for reconstruction surgeries. The NCCP worked with the HSE acute operations to facilitate access for hospitals to the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, as a short-term measure to help to speed up the reconstructive surgeries across the different cancer centres and reduce overall waiting times.
In 2025, the NCCP provided funding to Cork University Hospital to pilot a project for patients to receive their risk-reducing surgery in the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital using elective theatre space. This pilot allows surgeries to be scheduled in a timely way suitable to the patients and does not compete with other cancer or unscheduled care demands. My thoughts go out to the patients still waiting for their surgery. The Government and I recognise the urgency of need for patients to receive their surgery so they can finish their treatment and move on with their lives. The Government remains committed to the implementation of the national cancer strategy and to continually build on improvements to service and better outcomes for patients.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27