The Irish Cancer Society has said there is a complacent notion that Ireland is doing well in terms of cancer treatment.
It told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health that while outcomes have improved in the last 30 years, there are regularly delays, issues with staffing and other critical concerns.
ICS Director of Advocacy Steve Dempsey said that over 4,100 people were waiting more than the recommended 28 days for an urgent colonoscopy between January and July this year.
He said that diagnostic delays have huge knock-on effects.
He told the committee that 5,800 women were not seen within the recommended ten working days at an urgent symptomatic breast disease clinic, between January and July of this year.
Mr Dempsey said that too few people get their cancer surgery within recommended timeframes for pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer or lung cancer.
He added that targets for radiation therapy have been consistently missed and that 880 people did not start radiation therapy within the recommended 15 days between January and July this year.
Mr Dempsey said these issues are a direct result of the lack of consistent ringfenced funding of cancer services.
He said that this year, the Society was told that funding will be allocated directly to Regional Executive Officers, via letters of determination outside of the Budget.
This means that weeks after the Budget, "we have no notion yet of funding for cancer services next year. We may never get that detail."
He said that the good work done to centralise cancer services in previous cancer strategies will be undermined in a push for regional subsidiarity.
Mr Dempsey told committee members there was a need to build up the political consensus to set up the next national cancer strategy for success.
The Health Service Executive said that survival rates have improved for many cancers at a rate that exceeds many other EU countries, but said there are challenges.
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It said that there have been three national cancer strategies published 1996, 2006 and 2017, each covering ten years.
The HSE said that the Department of Health and the HSE will review the implementation of the current strategy and commence the development of a new strategy in 2026.
HSE Chief Technology and Transformation Officer Damien McCallion said that increased referrals driven by population growth, heightened awareness of symptoms and improved detection, in addition to increasing complexity of both diagnostic pathways and cancer care, are placing significant demand on existing services, as evidenced by performance data of some cancer services.
The HSE said that new radiation oncology facilities have opened in Cork and Galway.
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health David Cullinane said it was very disappointing that the HSE cannot say at this stage how much extra funding will be provided next year for the National Cancer Strategy.
Mr McCallion said the HSE was awaiting a letter of determination on funding for 2026 from the Department of Health.
Committee Chairperson Pádraig Rice raised the issue of the age of public radiation therapy machines.
He said the internationally accepted lifespan for radiation therapy machines is ten years.
Deputy Rice said eight public machines were over 15 years old and two were over 17 years old.
He said there were frequent breakdowns with these old machines and there was no national replacement programme.
