Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 November 2025
486. Deputy Robert O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Health if she plans to roll out a national awareness campaign for pancreatic cancer; if such a campaign would provide material for both medically trained and non-medically trained (patients, family, friends, carers) individuals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [66766/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government is committed to improving cancer care, ensuring better prevention, maintaining improvements in cancer survival rates, and timely access to treatments.
The Government has allocated significant funding of €105 million, including €23 million in 2025, to the National Cancer Strategy since 2017 to support cancer services and improve outcomes for patients. This includes allocating funding to screening programmes, cancer treatment and survivorship services.
This funding has enabled the recruitment of over 670 staff to our national cancer services, including 200 nursing staff, 100 consultants, and 180 health and social care professionals in designated cancer centres. Funding in 2025 will support recruitment of 179 additional staff to national cancer screening and treatment services.
Capital funding of over €140 million has been used since 2017 to provide state of the art radiation oncology facilities to establish a National Cervical Screening Laboratory, and to update cancer infrastructure in chemotherapy wards and lab facilities. This year’s capital plan includes €12.13m for radiation oncology projects along with further funding for the design and construction of Oncology Day Units and chemotherapy infrastructure.
Pancreatic cancer is the 9th most diagnosed invasive cancer, accounting for 2.5% of invasive cancer diagnoses. Early pancreatic cancer rarely presents with specific or classic red-flag symptoms, such symptoms typically appear only in advanced stages of the disease. Around 600 new cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed in Ireland each year.
In line with Recommendation 21 from the National Cancer Strategy 2017-2026, surgery for pancreatic cancer has been centralised to two cancer centres: A national centre in St Vincent’s University Hospital and an associated centre in Cork University Hospital and significant work has been done to improve the awareness and treatment of pancreatic cancer in Ireland.
The NCCP have completed scoping the requirements to develop a pancreatic pathway from primary care through tertiary care.
The first version of the NCCP genomic test directory for cancer was published in July 2024 with the publication of the test directory for colorectal and ovarian cancer. It has now been expanded to include the Pancreatic cancer also.
The test directory comprises a list of clinical indications for genomic testing for cancer patients and is focused on clinically actionable findings.
A number of new testing pathways have been introduced in line with HSE reimbursement approval of new Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) indications. These include direct ordering of BRCA testing by medical oncologists to support prescribing of PARP (Poly (ADP-ribose) Polymerase) inhibitors in prostate cancer, breast cancer and pancreatic cancer which allows timely access to testing for patients to help inform treatment decisions.
Survival rates for patients have improved greatly and OECD data shows that cancer mortality rates in Ireland are falling faster than the EU27 average and faster than our economic peers.
