{"id":113994,"date":"2025-10-31T11:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/113994\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T11:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:35:07","slug":"richard-boyd-barrett-given-all-clear-following-treatment-for-throat-cancer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/113994\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Boyd Barrett given all-clear following treatment for throat cancer \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People Before Profit-Solidarity<\/a> TD Richard Boyd Barrett<\/a> says his treatment for throat cancer has been \u201csuccessful\u201d and the disease had been \u201celiminated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett said on Friday he had undergone a scan in the past week that confirmed his treatment for throat cancer had been a success. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got a scan in the last week or so which says the treatment has been successful and has eliminated the cancer,\u201d he told RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s Claire Byrne show. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will have to be monitored closely, check-ups every three months for the next five years, but they are saying it\u2019s worked. It\u2019s as good a result for the treatment I got as you can get.\u201d<\/p>\n

The D\u00fan Laoghaire TD described the cancer treatment as \u201charsh\u201d and said there were \u201csome absolutely terrible days\u201d when he couldn\u2019t even drink water because of nausea. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey burn the cancer out of your throat, and that means there\u2019s quite a lot of damage done to your throat.\u201d This causes a dry mouth and sometimes \u201cchokey\u201d feeling which makes speaking and eating difficult, he said. <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t eat solid food for three to four months and relied on nutri-drinks and shakes for energy. \u201cYou wonder at that time, will you ever eat normal food again? Your appetite is gone, you can\u2019t hold anything down.\u201d <\/p>\n

The People Before Profit-Solidarity TD said he planned to start easing himself back into work but would take things slowly. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people will understand that I may not be going at 100 per cent capacity for a while until I try things out, because the side effects are substantial. They don\u2019t know how long they last, some of them can even be lifelong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett paid tribute to the staff from St Luke\u2019s oncology unit in Dublin who have \u201cgiven my life back to me, basically\u201d. <\/p>\n

He thanked his party colleagues, including former People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Br\u00edd Smith, who continued to offer a constituency service in D\u00fan Laoghaire during his absence. <\/p>\n

He also endorsed the idea of introducing a system in Leinster House whereby another individual can step fully into the role of a TD if they become seriously ill. <\/p>\n

He referenced the \u201cthousands of messages, letters, every type of communication\u201d he received from people around the country – \u201cfrom all political persuasions and every background you can imagine\u201d – after he announced his cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett stepped back from work in April to undergo treatment after revealing he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. <\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett said he noticed a lump on his neck during last year\u2019s general election campaign and had it investigated before Christmas.<\/p>\n

He was operated on to have his tonsils removed and a biopsy was performed on tissue, which revealed the cancer diagnosis. He was told that the cancer has spread to his lymph nodes, but no further and that he expected to take three to four months off work. <\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett has been a TD for D\u00fan Laoghaire since 2011, and is the parliamentary leader of the People Before Profit-Solidarity group.<\/p>\n

One of the D\u00e1il\u2019s most outspoken TDs, he is a familiar critic of the Government on the airwaves on a range of issues. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Richard Boyd Barrett on his cancer treatment: \u2018It is going to be very difficult to eat. That is what worries me most\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Boyd Barrett said he had kept a \u201cvery close eye\u201d on the presidential election campaign which saw political parties on the Left come together in their endorsement of Catherine Connolly. He said he had first suggested this type of \u201cunited front\u201d of the Left during the 2020 general election campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve see from the Catherine Connolly campaign that we can unite and I hope that lesson can be taken forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if his cancer diagnosis and treatment had changed him in any way, Mr Boyd Barrett said it made him \u201cappreciate life, being alive\u201d. <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cMy political principles haven\u2019t changed a bit but I think you learn. It\u2019s reinforced the idea that the vast majority of people are decent people and they want a better world, a fairer world and they want to be good to each other. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what left wing politics should be about \u2013 solidarity, our common humanity, that we work better together. It\u2019s reinforced a lot of my sense about the potential and possibility to change the world for the better. And I\u2019m glad I\u2019ll be around to play some part in that, thanks to the health workers.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett says his treatment for throat cancer has been \u201csuccessful\u201d and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[258,6130,42,43,68900,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-113994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cancer","tag-claire-byrne","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-richard-boyd-barrett","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}