Debate contribution: CAR T-cell Therapy

Debate contribution by Mr Philip McGuigan on 22 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Philip McGuigan

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

22 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

CAR T-cell Therapy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5124465

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Before I get to the specific subject of the motion, it is important that we consider the broader context of how cancer care is being delivered in the North. The cancer strategy that was published in 2022 set out a vision for transforming outcomes, improving access and embedding person-centred care, yet, nearly three years on, implementation remains slow, underfunded and fragmented. Cancer patients are already being let down by delays in waiting times for diagnostic testing. The delays add stress and uncertainty and, in some cases, could impact on patient outcomes. We cannot compound that injustice by denying access to cancer therapies being delivered as close to home as possible. Clearly, I support the motion, and I thank the SDLP for tabling it. I join the proposer of the motion in acknowledging Catherine Sherry and her sad loss and in welcoming her family members to the Assembly. I acknowledge their courage in sharing their family's very personal and heartbreaking story to raise awareness of the lack of CAR T-cell treatment in the North, of the toll that travelling for the therapy can take on the individual receiving the treatment and on their family, and of the additional risk factors of infection that can arise from having to travel on public transport, including planes, and wait in busy spaces such as airports. The implications of all those factors are real, preventable and must be addressed. CAR T-cell therapy is a breakthrough in cancer treatment. It offers hope where hope has, perhaps, run out. Patients here should not have to travel hundreds of miles for the treatment. They should not have to travel outside Ireland, when Dublin's St James's Hospital, just 60 miles from where Catherine lived, offers the same therapy. The Minister has stated that he is working towards establishing a new regional haematology ward in Belfast that will enable patients to receive CAR T-cell therapy locally. That investment is welcome, but, by the Minister's own admission, it will not be delivered until 2030 at the earliest, assuming that there are no unforeseen delays. The Minister also acknowledges that the time taken to put in place the necessary arrangements to enable patients to access treatment in Dublin would be nugatory, when plans are in place to open a regional ward. However, I ask the Minister, in his response today, to detail precisely how long, he believes, the process to put in place an island-wide arrangement would take. It should be straightforward and take very little time. I also ask him to outline how that time frame compares with the five years' — at least — wait for a local service for patients here. If the answer is anything less than five years, surely, he must act to get that arrangement in place now. In conclusion —

— access to live-saving healthcare should not be constricted —

— by the boundaries of the system. We need an all-Ireland approach to the issue.

490 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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