Cancer survival rates unlikely to change due to underfunding

Kenneth Fox

Cancer survival rates in Ireland are unlikely to improve due to the current rate of underfunding, according to the Irish Cancer Society.

Addressing the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday, the charity's chief executive, Averil Power noted that since the last iteration of Ireland’s national cancer strategy was introduced in 2017, just two of the subsequent budgets – in 2021 and 2022 - have provided “proper funding” for its implementation.

In 2024, an additional €20 million was requested by the HSE for the national cancer strategy. That funding was not provided.

As the Irish Examiner reports, the current cancer care strategy was launched in 2017 by new Taoiseach Simon Harris during his stint as health minister.

Ms Power told the committee that at the current rate of funding, the most recent strategy, Ireland's third, will be the first to fail in its goals of easing the burden of cancer on society since those national plans were first introduced in the 1990s.

Previously, Ireland’s five-year survival rate for a cancer diagnosis had improved from 44 per cent in 1998 to 65 per cent in 2018 following the implementation of the first two strategies.

Asked whether it was the case that her organisation has no confidence that cancer survival rates in Ireland will improve in the coming years at the current rate of funding, Ms Power replied that she was “really sad” to be making that statement.

“People are not being given the best possible chance,” she said, adding that she was “conscious of what it means for an organisation like ours to say we don’t have hope or we don’t have faith”.

“We don’t have the basis for faith in improvement as was seen in the previous strategies,” she said.

“That is our feeling, that is what we need to bring to your attention. It is a prediction rather than reality; the only way it won’t become reality is if we get the significant investment needed to get the strategy back on track."