It is hoped a recommendation on a Europe-wide right for cancer survivors' diagnoses to be forgotten to financial services could be published as soon as next year.

An Irish MEP is relaunching the campaign to make the right to be forgotten standard across the EU.

Billy Kelleher has written to the European Commissioner for Financial Services to highlight his concerns.

He is concerned that people who have been treated for cancer are being unfairly penalised when applying for loans including mortgages and insurance cover.

He has asked the European Commissioner for financial services to restart negotiations on this issue.

Nine EU countries have legislation governing the right to be forgotten while others including Ireland operate a voluntary code of practise for the industry.

"Simply unacceptable"

MEP Kelleher says the sector should forget a diagnosis after five years.

“I've had a young man who had testicular cancer after many, many years failing to get mortgages because of that,” he said.

“That simply is unacceptable.

“There's huge advances in cancer therapy and treatments and we also need now to ensure that is reflected in terms of the actuarial assessment of risk and that it is built into the system to allow cancer survivors over five years to be able to apply for a mortgage like anybody else.

“Unless it's legislated for, codes of conduct sometimes wither away over a period of time.

“What we want to see now is it being uniform across all financial service providers, mortgage protection providers and those that provide other financial services and it's across the entirety of Ireland.”

MEP Kelleher said this should be standard “across the entirety of European Union”.

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher on the Plinth at Leinster House, 16-01-2018. Image: Leah Farrell/RollingNews