Posted by Leinster House 7th of October 2026
Lets start with the 6th of October when the Irish Government released the 2027 budget for Ireland. The government is a coalition of what was once the main body of government and the opposition, something that now reminds me of a book I had to study in School “Animal Farm” I always wondered why this book was such a big part of schooling and here we are looking at the effects of greed in our little country. I don’t want to make this article all about politics but in reality it reflects on our National Health Service so I have little choice. Our government Leader An Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and our Department of Finance delivered the Budget which basically failed to help our people in multiple ways, For the last 6 weeks for example I have not filled up our Oil Tank with domestic heating Oil, Oil prices have soared in Ireland due to the ongoing Wars in Iran. In 3035 the Domestic Oil prices were on average €0.95 per litre (about €470 for 500 litres) current prices are €1.56 per litre (about €780 for 500 litres) The government receive VAT at 15% plus a carbon tax. It was expected or hoped that they would reduce the VAT rate to 8% and remove carbon tax. However in the budget they only release part of the carbon Tax. This meant little if any change to stablishing our fuel cost, they also added €10 a week to the already excessively low disability allowance, simply that money would evaporate into fuel cost instantly, the government were aware that they needed to look at increasing disability payments by a minimum of €50 per week just to keep up with inflation. And the big catch here is that the government claimed 6.2 billion Euros in “Surplus to requirement”. With that “Surplus to requirement” comments I will explain our presentation on the 7th
Ireland currently have two transplant centres, 1 in Dublin and 1 in Galway. These centres provide Stem Cell Transplant for the entire Island of Ireland 5.3 million people, with 2,700 newly diagnosed Blood Cancer patients annually in Ireland with an average relapse rate (pending type) of 50% that means 1,350 people in Ireland could require a stem cell transplant or clinical trial treatment like Gene Cell therapy, these procedures can only be conducted in specialised laboratories, The guidelines for these labs is controlled by EU directives 2004/23/EC as the standard set. The European Hematology Association (EHA) set out the diagnostic guidelines for Blood Cancer, I was invites by the EHA to represent a patients voice on the steering committee for the revised Diagnostic guidelines for 2026 which was published in June 2026, I represented The Lymphoma Coalition and we succeeded in making some great changes to these guidelines. The importance of this published guidelines and the situation in Ireland is very relevant our treatment centres, basically the recommendations for relapsed blood cancer patients is to proceed with a Stem Cell Transplant or suitable clinic trials. These trials mentioned CARs T Cell therapy which is now been trialled in multiple blood cancers and solid based cancers. Without the labs we can’t provide this treatment. And from experience as I was an Autologous Stem Cell transplant patient (self donor) in 2017 I lived in Cork, the nearest transplant centre that were conducting a final stage clinic trial for this was 175 miles from my home, as a ASCT it meant that I needed a very aggressive form of Chemotherapy to prepare me for a stem cell harvest, in other words I was subjected to vast levels of Chemotherapy to “wash my blood and bone marrow” of cancer cells. This treatment was immense and left me immune compromised and basically wrecked, but I still had to travel up for my Stem Cell Harvest and then back for the final chemo before admission 6 weeks later in Dublin. Everything about these treatments are time sensitive, when I relapsed in March 2017 I was classed as terminal with 3 months to live pending treatment. When you hear the words terminal it changes everything and I ignored the distance required to travel for treatment until it actually happened, Anita and myself shared the driving up and back and we struggled to make it happen, travelling up an back in a car for a 6 hour round trip drive as a healthy person can be difficult when you’re on a timeline so just imagine what that drive is like for someone who has undergone extreme levels of Chemotherapy. Thankfully I was able to achieve this but it meant a long stay in hospital 170 miles from home, Anita suffered a foot fracture when I was admitted to the unit in Dublin which meant she was unable to travel up. Facing a life and death situation as a person is mind blowing but doing it alone brings a different level of fear, and heres the catch, 10 minutes from the hospital that preformed the initial chemotherapy is a hospital called CUH, this hospital covers a population of ½ million people in Cork and extends to a population 1.4 million people in region of Munster. In terms of size it is a massive campus with the only PET scan unit in any other hospital in Munster. In 2006 this hospital had a stem cell transplant unit but it had to be closed as the lab needed refurbishment to get to the EU directives 2004/23/EC, once closed it remained closed ever since, the cost for the necessary lab would cost 27 million euros
So who is actually addressing this. I previously wrote about Mags McCarthy a well known Country and Western singer from Cork. Mags father had to undergo a Stem Cell Transplant in 2020 and travelling up and back to Dublin following COVID proved to be extremely difficult. Mags then found out that this service could have been made available in Cork and the family oncologist Dr. Vitaliy Mykytiv CUH explained the situation that the unit was closed 20 years ago for refurbishment and remained closed without any sign of funding. Thankfully Mags decided enough was enough and commence organizing a group to present the issues to the government. Mags contact a research professor for Gene Therapy Professor Bruce Levine Bruce Levine is a pioneer in the field of cell and gene therapy whose work has helped change how we treat cancer. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, he serves as the Barbara and Edward Netter Professor in Cancer Gene Therapy and is the Founding Director of the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility (CVPF). This professor has created a substantial number of break through treatments for cancer in particular blood cancers and his team are currently on the short list for a Pulsar Nobel Prize medical honours 2026. He is considered the very top of medical research worldwide. Professor Bruce made recommendations to Mags about the type of team needed to produce medical evidence to support the push the reopening of the CUH centre, this team then started to take shape both with Medical professional and Patient Advocates,
Medical professionals:
Professor Bruce Levine University of Pennsylvania
Professor Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha: Current chair of the practice harmonization and guidelines of EBMT, past chair of the Chronic Malignancies Working Party (CMWP) of EBMT (2018-2022) and past President of the Francophone Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (SFGM-TC) (2012-2016), Prof. Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha has served as Head of the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and cellular therapy Unit at Lille University Hospital since 2008. He is also Editor in Chief of Current Research in Translational Medicine, has authored or co-authored more than 500 scientific articles in the field of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation with a focus on studies concerning patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, multiple myeloma and immune effector cells such as CAR T cells, and has written several chapters for referential textbooks.
Dr Vitaliy Mykytiv Consultant Haematologist CUH Cork University Hospital
Patient advocates
Ms Mags McCarthy International Patient advocate and group co coordinator
Mr Michael Rynees CLL Ireland and Europe Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) https://clli.ie/
Mr Michael Rynees CLL Ireland and Ian Doherty Hodgkins Lymphoma Awareness Ireland/ The Lymphoma Coalition
Mr Maurice O’Donoghue: Former Army Officer and Barrister at Law,
Ms Mairead O’Mahony: Diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia / Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia) at 17 in October 1996; bone marrow transplant in July 1997. She has competed in track and field and 5K road races at World and European Transplant Games in Perth, Lisbon, Dresden and Arnhem.
Mr Dermot O’Leary patient and facilitator, Multiple Myeloma Ireland South Support Group.
Mr Brian O’Connor Multiple myeloma patient.
Mr Sean Brick multiple myeloma Kerry
Ms Ann Marie O’Mahoney Multiple myeloma patient.
Ms Niamh O’Donovan Patient and carer advocate
Mr Sean Tobin patient advocate Waterford
Mr Noel Casey Patient advocate
Senator Eileen Lynch Eileen was elected as a Senator, in February 2025. She was elected as a Fine Gael Councillor in the Macroom Electoral Area, in her first election, in May 2019
And last but not least
Mr Ian Doherty Voluntary patient advocate for the Lymphoma Coalition and a member of its Community Advisory Board. He represented the patient voice to the European Hematology Association on 2026 Hodgkin lymphoma and large B-cell diagnostic guidelines, published in June 2026.
A collection of multiple blood cancer advocates all voluntarily working towards getting greater access to essential treatment centers in Ireland. And supported by international medical professionas, Senator Eileen Lynch managed to organize a presentation to the government via the Leinster House AV room
AV Room (The Audio-Visual (AV) Room in Leinster House—located beside the LH 2000 entrance—is a tiered presentation and meeting space used by Oireachtas members, advocasy groups and civil society organizations. The presentation was set for 11am on the 7th of October.
Returning to the start of this article the national budget was presented the day before the presentation, the government were questioned about the budget on the 7th. So basically TDs were moving between the AV room and The sitting house of representatives, however even with that level of pressure the AV room was packed with government officials and the group found that these representatives were unaware of the serious lack of services in Ireland. A lot was presented and some difficult issues raised including Professor Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha that the service provided in Ireland was way below the EU other nations services, one very interesting comment for me was that a patient travelling any distance beyond a 2 hour journey breaches clinical safety thresholds.
A few catches here, the HSE (Health Service Executive) in Ireland is in breach of patient safety and falls way below EU standard of care. The service has openly accepted that they recognize the need for the centre but it is not included within their operation budget up to 2030. Lack of funds available in a country that has 6.2 billion Euros Surplus to requirement. Hate to say the obvious here but are cancer patients Surplus to requirement in the eyes of the government ????? it’s that simple they know it’s needed but refuse to fund it.
National News media are currently pushing this campaign including Cork 96FM thanks to work of PJ Coogan and so many other reporters nationwide.
And now the plans begin to keep the fire burning and get the objectives achieved. We unfortunately need to hold fast for a little while as this current government still need to get the budget passed in the house, if they don’t then it could lead to a vote of confidence which I seriously doubt they could survive, in reality or in my view the answer is that the coalition of the two parties should place a vote of no confidence in the leaders of the parties and appoint new leaders that have a better approach to what people need. The issues in Ireland are all urgent, this government have stalled multiple issues to attempt to resolve them in a single day as against been proactive throughout the year. Last years budget Surplus to requirement was 6.9 billion Ireland current have a wealth fund of 30 billion Euros and these funds are surplus to requirements – seriously lads you need to wake up and view the dangers you are placing on Irish Citizens.
Ian Doherty in Leinster House 7th of October
Just a personal note. I was representing The Lymphoma Coalition at this event, basically as a member of the community advisory Board I can act as a patient advocate for the Coalition. My de brief will be tomorrow to update Ms Natacha Bolaños Head, Membership & Alliances The Lymphoma Coalition, since my radiotherapy in 2014 I have had difficulty wearing a tie, the radiotherapy basically damaged nerves to the right side of my neck to the point that dress Shirt fittings to my neck size at 17 inches were extremely painful and adding a tie to a tight fit shirt was unbearable for any lengthy amount of time, my solution for this meeting was to wear a 18 inch shirt which I expected would offer more comfort and it did except it was obvious in the photos that the shirt didn’t fit properly, Yes I have lost weight since 2014 and I do find it difficult to put on weight but not to the extent that I have lost too much. The long term affects of cancer treatment comes in many forms and are mostly kept away from public focus, even something as simple as a badly fitted shirt has a reason ,,,,
From Left to right – Ian Doherty HLAI, Mags McCarthy Patient advocate and Senator Eileen Lynch
