I was in Croke Park this morning for the All-Island Cancer Summit 2026. It had organisations from the Irish Cancer Society and medical consultants to researchers, people from the hospitals and everyone involved in cancer care in the country. The big concern they all have is about the future ten-year cancer plan. The strategy is a ten-year plan from 2016 to 2026. Has a team been established to plan for cancer care and treatment in the country for the next ten years? How can we deal with the new therapies being delivered and made available? How we can keep up to date with those new therapies? When is a plan going to be put in place? Is a team in place?

We have benefited enormously from a strategic approach to cancer over the past three decades, going back to the late nineties. That has resulted in significant survival rate improvements and increases in technology and so on. Survival rates for patients have improved greatly. OECD data show that cancer mortality rates in Ireland are falling faster than the EU 27 average and faster than that of our economic peers.

The first strategy was 1996. My understanding is that there is a successor to the current ten-year strategy in planning and on the way. There has to be.

I will talk to the Minister in terms of the Deputy's raising this issue today. We need to continue with that strategic approach, looking ahead at trends, therapies and how best to deploy them.