David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Much of this dates back to a cut in the fees when the financial emergency measures in the public interest were introduced. It was around that time when there was a reduction in the level of services available and also a cut in the fees. Substantial changes were made. At that point, this was the issue. Mr. Hourihan is saying that there is a fundamental problem with scheme in terms of the range of services that are provided and that the fees are part of the problem. I am aware, through the document Mr. Hourihan submitted to the committee, that he is in favour of a voucher scheme. As Oireachtas Members, we all must be careful of what schemes we support or do not support. There may well be validity in what Mr. Hourihan is putting forward, but we need to tease out what a voucher scheme would mean and how it would work in practice. It proposes that initially there would be a €100 voucher immediately and then a vouch up to €500, and not all patients may need to use that. It does not say there would be any agreed rates. I imagine that if they were to agree to scheme like this the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and the Department of Health would say that there has to be agreed rates, and that we could not just have a voucher scheme where dentist A charges X and dentist B charges Y. This would be for accountability purposes. This is not mentioned in the report that was done. Is this something the IDA and dentists would be open to as part of it?