Deputy Cahill contacted me yesterday about a constituent of his who has been diagnosed with grade 3 cancer of the breast and had an appointment in the Mater hospital. I raise this in the context of the programme for Government, the cancer strategy and the timely attention to people in difficult situations. It is a very challenging diagnosis. The woman was given an appointment for 9 November last and was told to arrive fasting on that day at 7 a.m. She had to come up to Dublin the day before. People have to make arrangements when they are travelling from the country to Dublin hospitals. A phone call came to say the operation was cancelled along with 34 others because of some edict from on high. The Minister for Health was mentioned but I presume it was not someone at that level. There was a fear of overcrowding in the accident and emergency department and that there was a need to preserve beds and cancel what were considered to be elective procedures. No guarantees could be given as to when the procedures would take place or that such an event would not happen again.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon but it seems to be happening with greater frequency. It is an extremely worrying development because part of the success of cancer strategies has been the idea that elective treatment and treatment generally would be ring-fenced and that in the centres of excellence there would be timelines for treatment after diagnosis which would not be breached by the pressures that acute services can impose on a hospital. I am aware of other hospitals where there are breaches and the timelines that were originally set down for treatment in the aftermath of diagnosis are not being met because of pressures on the acute tertiary hospitals.

Is the Taoiseach concerned about that? Will he investigate the situation - I can give him the particular details - and the wider issue that arises as a result of such cancellations of urgent intervention which seem to happen more frequently?

I am very sorry to hear that lady's operation was cancelled. It must be particularly distressing if a patient is travelling a long distance or if he or she has been psyched up for a procedure or has to fast for a prolonged period. What the Deputy mentioned does happen. Operations are regularly cancelled, unfortunately, where overcrowding occurs in hospitals. That is done for good reasons. The Deputy mentioned that overcrowding in hospitals can have an impact on mortality and morbidity, and that is why elective operations are cancelled far too frequently.

With regard to the solution, first, bed capacity must be increased. An extra 250 beds were put into the system in the last year alone. We have proposals now to develop elective hospitals that do not have emergency departments so they do not get overwhelmed on a busy day and operations do not get cancelled. We have a bit of that already with Cappagh hospital and some other hospitals-----

We have those but it is the tertiary centres that deal with-----

-----and also moving more procedures to quieter periods, such as weekends, when hospitals are less likely to be overcrowded.