Boyd Barrett announces cancer treatment

People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd Barrett has announced he will be briefly stepping back from politics as he is being treated for throat cancer.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today With Claire Byrne Show on Monday morning, the Dún Laoghaire TD said he would be taking a break from politics “for a few months” as he undergoes treatment.

“I have to enter into a fairly intense period of cancer treatment; it’s going to certainly take a couple of months probably.”

“All in all, we could be talking three or four months,” he said.

The People Before Profit TD said he will undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy and that his form of cancer is “very curable – I’ve a good chance.”

“I wanted to explain it because if I just disappeared, people, the constituents who elected me, would be wondering where I’m gone, so I wanted to do them the service of telling them,” he stated.

Boyd Barrett, who was named as party leader last October, said “the people who voted for People Before Profit deserve to know if I’m not around and I just want to stress, I plan to be back as soon as possible.”

“I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the health workers who have been looking after me so well. I am relying entirely on the public health care system and I hope that the government will fulfill their commitment to resource and staff our public health service so the health workers can look after us all the way that they want to do,” he commented.

Former TD Bríd Smith will help Boyd Barrett in running his constituency office in his absence.

“I’m disappointed to have to step back from my work during this time, but I look forward to getting back as soon as possible to representing my constituents and campaigning on housing; to ensure that ordinary people are not made to pay for Trump’s tariff wars; to defend our neutrality; for the people of Gaza; and all the other issues that are central to my political life,” he said.

“Finally I would like to thank everyone for all the good wishes. I have received many messages of support from my family, friends, from my party, from other political colleagues, and from the public, I really appreciate all the kind words”.