About Us

The mission of the Irish Cancer Society (Charity number CHY5863), the national cancer care charity, is to play a vital role in achieving world-class cancer services in Ireland, to ensure fewer people get cancer and those that do have better outcomes. Our goals are focused around prevention, early detection and fighting cancer with three programme areas to achieve them; advocacy, cancer services and research.

Over the next five years (2008 - 2012) our goals will centre around implementing a zero tolerance approach to smoking in young people, reducing the incidence of advanced colorectal cancer and mortality from that cancer and ensuring every member of the Irish public has access to the information and support they need.

In tandem we will continue to deliver a range of hospital and community based nursing services to people with cancer and their families across Ireland, including the delivery of our flag ship community based night nursing service.

In research, we will continue to leverage the Society’s unique position to support innovative, high-quality, high-impact pre-clinical, clinical, epidemiological, social and behavioural research by providing direct funding and by securing funding from other sources.

Using the results of the pre-clinical and clinical research, our researchers have and will continue to take small steps in identifying risk factors for various cancers so that the disease may be prevented, identifying the cellular mechanisms of cancer in order to unravel the mystery of why some cells behave normally and some become cancerous and identifying the most effective combination of therapies in treating cancer.

Using the results of our epidemiological, social and behavioural research, our staff and researchers will continue to gain a more thorough understanding as to why people fail to make healthy lifestyle and cancer preventative choices and a more thorough understanding of psychosocial cancer issues. Enhancing our understanding in these areas informs our work.

Read our mission statement or learn more about how we are governed.