Central Bank (Amendment) Bill 2025: Instruction to Committee Dail Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Robert Troy (FF), Longford-Westmeath I thank all Deputies who contributed to the debate this evening. I acknowledge patients, survivors and families for whom cancer has impacted their lives. There is not a family in this country that have not been impacted by cancer, my own included. I think of my two siblings who I lost to cancer many years ago. Perhaps that was one of the driving forces that meant I wanted to do something positive when I was in a role to do something that can make a difference to cancer survivors. Deputy Ardagh has been very generous with her praise of me but I think of everybody who has worked together to bring us to where we are today. It just goes to show that when we do work collectively with key stakeholders and advocacy groups as a collective of people within the Dáil, we can make a very positive difference to people's lives. That is what this Bill is about, making a very positive difference to the lives of cancer survivors, ensuring fairness and ensuring dignity, as Deputy Ardagh has said. I ask Members of the Opposition not to put in amendments just for the sake of it to say they are trying to do better than what the Government is doing. We arrived at this position after really intensive negotiations and after looking at international best practice. In Italy the term is ten years. In Portugal and Italy the term is ten years, as it is in the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, Luxembourg. In Slovenia, Romania and Czechia the term is seven years. The three other countries with terms of five years are France, Belgium and Spain. There is a reason why we are here. Many other countries do not have this at all. We have arrived at this position because it is proportionate and because it will not have unintended consequences for everybody else's policy. Of course we could put it at one year, but what impact would that have on the cost of mortgage protection for every other policy that has been taken out? Let us keep working in the spirit of what we have arrived at with this Bill today. Many people spoke about the insurance industry, maybe in derogatory terms, and sometimes they deserve the criticism they get in this House but, to their credit and in fairness, they did introduce a voluntary code on the back of the work that then Senators Ardagh, Gavan and Buttimer introduced in the Seanad. The industry did introduce a voluntary code that worked. We are now going further than the voluntary code from seven years to five years. Deputy Ardagh said a sum of €96 million was insured under the voluntary code and that 100% of the people who met the criteria were offered cover at the standard rates. So, credit where credit is due, the insurance companies introduced a voluntary code and it was working. We are going further, with the reduction in the term from seven years to five years and increasing the cost cover from €500,000 to €650,000. We have worked well together collectively. This is a very positive day, as Deputy Ardagh has said, for cancer survivors. Sometimes you get up here and you talk about legislation and you wonder what the tangible benefits are for the people whom we are so honoured to represent in this House. There is very tangible benefit for cancer survivors. I thank Deputy Ardagh for her advocacy and for pushing this to the fore at every opportunity she could. As the Deputy said, one of her first times to speak in the Dáil having been elected was introducing the Private Members' business. The Deputy enabling me to adopt that Bill has enabled us bring it forward to where it is today. I would have liked to have done it faster. Certainly, there are things we can learn from that. It is a positive news day for cancer survivors. With the support of the House, we will introduce it on Committee Stage next week. I would ask members of the Opposition to not submit amendments for the sake of it. We have arrived at this. All the key stakeholders welcome this. The Irish Cancer Society welcomes this. I spoke at the All-Island Cancer Research Institute's summit in Croke Park on Tuesday. It welcomes this. Its members asked me to go and speak on this in Brussels to advocate the Irish position internationally. It is the right position. Let us stay united on this when it comes to Committee Stage next week. --- 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/dail/2026-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-20