Campaigners for a specialist cancer treatment unit in Donegal have dismissed the offer of access to a new radiotherapy service in the North as "just not good enough".
Northern Ireland Office health minister Paul Goggins announced the service last week. It is based in Belfast and patients from the Republic, particularly Co Donegal, are to have access to it.
But Donegal Action for Cancer Care spokeswoman Noelle Duddy said yesterday: "What Belfast will offer for Donegal patients is another choice for radiotherapy treatment but it does not solve the problem for patients in the northwest and in particular those who require palliative radiation treatment."
She said the group had asked Minister for Health Mary Harney for an urgent meeting to discuss all issues relating to radiotherapy in the northwest.
Ms Duddy said the campaign group was aware that a safe radiotherapy unit with highly-skilled medical staff could only be maintained if there were sufficient numbers using the service.
In the northwest that would mean combining the population of Donegal with that of a section of the North.
She said the combined populations of Donegal and Derry added up to more than the required figure of around 250,000.
She added: "All we're asking for is reasonable, transparent, honest, open discussion with the people who have the responsibility of providing a much-needed service for the people of the northwest.
"The facility in Belfast will reach its capacity for its own Northern Ireland population in the very near future.
"There will be need for Northern Ireland to provide further services for their own population.
"Another unit will have to be built and we are saying it should be built in the northwest, and that Letterkenny is the best place for it.
"For the people of west Donegal and northwest Donegal to go to Belfast is not an answer to their difficulties. It is easier for them to fly to Dublin than to go to Belfast," Ms Duddy added.