We are very privileged in this House to be able to raise matters of national importance for the country and citizens. This morning I beg the indulgence of the House to listen to a case that is extremely urgent for a family in Galway. I ask the Deputy Leader to make the following request to the Minister for Health. The story concerns a young father of three children who is 40 years of age. He lives in Galway and earlier this year was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer. He told me the tumour growing inside him was so big that he could feel it. He has been to doctors in Galway and Dublin who worked in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, a hospital of repute and the best in the world for cancer treatment. His best chance of survival and securing the best outcome, despite undergoing chemotherapy, some reversals and some success, involves him going to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The cost of treatment would be €93,000. If the family waits any longer, there will no longer be enough of the liver unaffected to accommodate the insertion of a chemotherapy pump inside his body.

That is a suitable topic to be raised on the Adjournment.

I appreciate that, but he must travel on 1 October and there is no time for an Adjournment motion. His family and 30 friends have borrowed €1,000 each to help fund the treatment, but we are under pressure to raise enough money next week to enable the family to travel. My request to the Deputy Leader which I ask her to put to the Minister for Health is that the treatment abroad scheme be extended to patients travelling to the United States for critical life-saving cancer treatment and that, at the very least, a contribution be made towards the cost of the treatment equivalent to the amount that would be granted if treatment to achieve a similar outcome was available in the European Union. The Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, said discretion should be allowed in order that a person's rights could be met. It is a reasonable request. I will take up the Cathaoirleach's suggestion next week, but I am conscious that next Tuesday is 1 October. We are, therefore, under pressure.