‘I intend to defeat it or it will defeat me’

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has expressed his determination to stay on in office while undergoing a course of chemotherapy treatment for cancer which he will start later this week.

Mr Lenihan said his diagnosis just before Christmas was “a great shock” and acknowledged the seriousness of his illness, saying: “It’s a growth I intend to defeat or it will defeat me.”

But the defiant Finance Minister returned to work yesterday and insisted he will “surmount this challenge” and can “give this job the full attention it requires”.