Mr. Fintan Hourihan:

I will deal with the second question and ask Dr. Robins to deal with the first about advances in dental science.

We have been threatened with criminal sanction and have had offices raided. We never accepted there is any basis for that approach. We negotiated the original agreement, and many agreements over the years. It was never explained to us what an alternative approach might be. As I said, and Deputy Shortall is well aware, this problem persisted with the Irish Medical Organisation up to 2014 when a solution was found. Before that, I had been raising the same issues on behalf of dentists and I had been told that whatever happened with doctors, because they knew they would have to resolve it, would apply to dentists pretty much automatically. Seven years on, that has not been the case. There is a solution there and I have no clear sense as to why they cannot simply do that. I have done all the work for them. I had adapted the 2014 framework agreement and presented it to them, and still I am waiting for an answer. I do not think there is an alternative. I do not think that any scheme would succeed without the implicit, and, indeed, explicit support of the Irish Dental Association. It does need to be addressed as a priority.

I will ask Dr. Robins to respond on the scheme being out of date insofar as best practice for patients is concerned.