Mr. Fintan Hourihan:

We last met the Minister in March or April of last year, and I can get the precise date. It would take an invitation from the Department of Health to the Irish Dental Association to attend. There are some legal issues that need to be resolved around competition law, but we have resolved those with the relevant Departments. The Department of Health has resolved those with the Irish Medical Organisation, so that should not be problematic. Ultimately, it will require Department to invite the association to discuss replacing the DTSS. There is common cause for it to be replaced. We have put forward a model to the Department of Health, which is aware of it, and it may or may not agree with it. The short answer is that it needs the Department to invite us to talk, because we have been available for quite some time. Believe it or not, it was in 2008 that there were talks on the replacement of the DTSS. The Department of Health left those talks and there have not been talks since. Sixteen years on, we are still waiting to be called back.