Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is still a relatively small budget. What I hear is that we do not have a budget and projected outcomes. The system would seem to be a patchwork. There is a budget if people can get a service. However, what we are finding is that people cannot get the service because the private dentists are not doing it. The private dentists are providing a fairly good service. I am not knocking them; they have a role. The problem arises with the DTSS ones.

I want to raise the school dental scheme, which I have raised consistently over the years in the Chamber and here. I will raise it with the HSE here again. Will the HSE please come back to me and tell me in what class children are being seen? They are supposed to be seen in third and fourth classes, so that is eight and nine years old, but it is more like 18 and 19 years now. They are certainly 16 years before they are seen. That is a real problem. They are being seen in third and fourth year of secondary, not in third and fourth class in primary. It is a catastrophe if we are allowing children’s health to deteriorate. Never mind the effect on oral health and general health but also on the public purse. Inevitably the problems for this will come down the line. It is a huge problem. That scheme is not working. It has fallen apart. I check these things with parents and in Laois and Offaly, the children are not being seen. They are being seen six or seven years late. Some escape from secondary school and they finish without being seen. It is an awful situation. When I was coming through primary school, the dentists might not have been as skilled as now but we were seen in third and fourth classes. Our children and grandchildren are not being seen until they have left school and it is too late. Will Mr. Walsh come back to me with figures, if he does not have them today, on what class children are being seen in and at what age in counties Laois and Offaly?