Mr. Fintan Hourihan:

The WHO document asks member states, of which Ireland is one, to develop ambitious national responses to promote oral health and reduce oral diseases and other conditions, as well as to strengthen efforts to address oral diseases and conditions as part of universal healthcare. The agreement looks at various targets. Essentially it is saying there should be universal access for all to dentistry. It has very lofty ambitions, considering the reality of what we are dealing with in Ireland right now. What we did, and my colleague Dr. Croke was instrumental here, was to assess what the WHO has said, state where we are in Ireland in terms of how ready we are to meet some of those aims and then identify a pathway as to what needs to be done to allow us to provide access to care without undue hardship, which is what the WHO asks. It says there should be access to universal healthcare without undue hardship. That sounds like a very lofty ambition, and it is, but we think it is a positive that the Government has signed up to it because it will be required to produce progress reports on an ongoing basis. It is also a vehicle for us to engage in a more structured way with the association. One of the things the WHO says is that there has to be a political commitment, a financial investment in oral health, and there needs to be better co-operation with the providers, and that is the likes of ourselves. Those are stated as the first two objectives by the WHO and we hope the Government responds as the WHO asks in order that we can use this as a way to push oral health higher up on the agenda.