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agree with other speakers in that successive Governments have left dental services for public patients to collapse in the State. The dental services scheme for medical card holders has been in a state of chaos for years. In the term of the previous Dáil, the then Minister, Stephen … hearing services are other examples of services that the State is steadily scaling back, relying on the private sector to pick up the slack. In disability services, we expect charities to do likewise. We must initiate a widespread recruitment plan for public dentists and sort out the DTSS

recruitment for dentists to work in the School dental programme, and in public dental services; — introduce a dynamic advertising and recruitment campaign for the DTSS, to encourage dental practices to take medical card patients in all parts of the State; — expand the range of services available under … paying their taxes but they need to see services for that money. If people could see good services, they would not mind paying their taxes and levies. We need to ensure that the HSE improves and expands hospital services and capacity for those children and adults with special

isolated failing; it is part of a wider collapse in public dental services – a collapse that is hitting families hard, especially those without the means to pay privately. Even medical card holders are struggling to find a dentist, let alone get an appointment. In Waterford, the picture

public dental service. We have just 249 dentists covering the entire country, down from 330 in 2009. It is scandalous that this has been allowed to happen. As I said, this has a very real impact, particularly on low-income persons and people dependent on the medical card … practice is certainly a much more exciting prospect because of the range of services they get to provide. There is a real issue where dentists with a number of years' service go into the public system because the range of services they provide is arguably more limited

also makes a vague commitment to improving access to emergency and routine dental care. When will this happen? Public dental care waiting lists are at breaking point. The medical card scheme is haemorrhaging dentists but one would not think it from reading the corporate plan. Where … purpose. A complete overhaul of the underpinning legislation and the medical card scheme is urgently required. They are relics of the past and must be modernised, not just modified. I also mention laboratory services, which get a passing reference in the corporate plan. However, there is no mention

particular, the public dental schemes. There is €230 million going into that per year. It is clear that we are not achieving what we need to achieve in terms of the schemes. It is clear that the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, for medical card patients … money spent on services, recruitment agencies, etc. That €276 million was only for 11 months of last year. The HSE's records showed that this finance was spent on services such as administration, management, nursing, medical, dental, and paramedical services and supports, as well as maintenance and technical

waiting for the general medical services, GMS, contract to be sorted out through the HSE. I am happy to announce that once this is approved, the Rowlagh medical centre could have the capacity to take more than 500 new medical card patients, which will be fantastic … area. There is also a shortage of public health nurses in Dublin Mid-West, in the Rossecourt resource centre in Lucan, the Lucan health centre, the Rathcoole health centre, the primary health centre in Clondalkin, and the Rowlagh health centre. Newborn babies' brains develop more in the first

context of Sláintecare, and we have to set it in that context. That means we must start providing the proper dental health services that are available to everybody. It is like many other problems, including housing. There is no one thing that will fix any of it. There … Simon Harris, turned the sod in 2019. My understanding is the funding is being withdrawn. Only 10% of dentists work in the public dental health services. Even private dentists are saying that figure needs to be doubled. We need to double the percentage to have a representative number

Minister's role is to provide a framework in which services can reliably and efficiently be delivered and to adequately fund these services. As I see it, the Minister is utterly failing. Of the 200,000 schoolchildren eligible for dental screening appointments, only half received what they were … backlog and not to make excuses for it. Despite the increase in population, the Irish Dental Association tells us we have 23% fewer public dentists than we had 15 years ago. What have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael done that they have overseen the collapse in the school

would have been really helpful to those of us who were campaigning from Opposition for the amendment and to those members of the public who were genuinely puzzled and perplexed by the wording. It is also fair to say, of course, the Attorney General's advice could … Minister of State's trump card at the end was to say that it would not be efficient and would undermine the work of Government and Opposition to pass this Bill, particularly on those two points of public interest and publication of Attorney General's advice

good idea. They also said it would give them a stronger pipeline into the public system. We cannot build dental services without making public dentistry a supported and attractive career path. A lot of my friends who studied dentistry have emigrated. That is a truth that we must … pure neglect of dental services, which places enormous pressure on families. I wish to briefly mention the dental treatment services scheme. We all know it was designed to ensure access for adults with medical cards, but no dentists are participating in it in many counties. That leaves vulnerable

need arise. The HSE also utilises the service provided by public health nurses and continence nurse advisers to assess individual patient needs to ensure the supply of incontinence wear products is appropriate. As part of the national service improvement programme for the community-funded schemes … distribution of incontinence wear products across all healthcare settings, including the home delivery service. The HSE advises that in circumstances where a person does not hold full eligibility, such as through a medical card or a long-term illness scheme card, reimbursement support for incontinence wear products

cards, delays in delivery, appointments not being filled, people on waiting lists waiting far beyond an acceptable time limit, complaints within the health service, the delivery of capital programmes and so on. As long as those questions are being asked, the Minister can be sure that the services … happening in regard to the delivery of those services. What is happening to those hours? The other theme that runs through health services is the ambulance service. You cannot talk about the health service without talking about the ambulance service. I have met some of the ambulance crews

cash in an attempt to buy votes last year, its message has suddenly changed. Now that an election is no longer on the cards, one-off payments are a bad idea. The Social Democrats told the Government that last year. We told it to invest in sustainable measures … Fine Gael likes to style itself as a party of fiscal probity, giving lectures to the public about the importance of counting pennies, but the reality is it has been throwing public money around like snuff at a wake. The Government's spending in a few short years

desperate mother from Mayo. For the past five years, my family has been unable to access any dental care through the medical card in our area. No one is accepting new patients, and despite endless phone calls, pleading, and searching, we’ve hit a brick wall over … have the money to go private, and yet the public system is impossible to access. That about sums it up. I do not know how many times last year I spoke on dental services and the lack of them in County Mayo. We were referred

ensure that every person in Cork and throughout Ireland can access the dental care to which they are entitled with their medical cards. We cannot allow this crisis to deepen. The people of Cork deserve better, our dentists deserve better and our healthcare system must do better … seen they are aged over 18. They are then in the adult dental service and go onto another waiting list. When I was growing up, there was a dental service in every town and village. In the name of God, what has gone wrong in this country

goes for children as well as adults. Public dental care is extremely limited. There are long waiting lists. Fewer private dentists accept medical cards. Children are meant to be seen in first or second class but often this does not happen until secondary school. A mother … parents get loans in order to go private. The cause of all this unnecessary suffering is deliberate underfunding and understaffing of our public dental service by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. They have pursued a policy of privatisation by stealth. Public dental care in this country

will recall that successive Cabinets had consistently resisted awarding repayments to holders of medical cards who had to pay for care in private nursing homes because of the lack of beds in public institutions. It was Government policy, on the advice of successive AGs, to settle with residents … Attorney General's office was not in the public interest. A core purpose of this Bill is to ensure that, at the very least, the Attorney General would have to have regard to the public interest when taking decisions in defending claims made against the State. There

would not otherwise have access to oral healthcare services. Regarding access to public oral healthcare services for children, there are access issues in respect of the current model of service provided by the HSE. This service aims to offer the first of three appointments to children while they … community-based model of dental education, significantly increasing the number of dentistry training places available nationally and expanding access to dental services. This was what Deputy O'Gorman spoke about just some minutes ago. The new RCSI bachelor of dental surgery programme will provide for between

dental screening were screened in 2022. Of those who are seen, many are seen late, with almost a ten-year backlog in accessing services in parts of the country. It is very common for children in Donegal to receive their first appointments when they are nearly finished primary … lack of dentists. This is what is causing such a backlog. Last year, there was only one dentist per 2,500 eligible medical card patients in Ireland. One in six patients on private dental care waiting lists is waiting over three months for an elective appointment, while half