Dr. Caroline Robins:

One would like to think we are in a better place now. However, we are continually seeing the results of the lack of resourcing and capacity to provide the care children need at key milestones in their lives. The public scheme is targeted at second, fourth and sixth classes. Those ages were chosen to coincide with important developmental stages in children's lives, health and oral development. The key was to be able to screen children to enable us to protect their teeth, prevent future tooth decay and, most importantly, educate parents and children on how best to look after teeth through diet, home care and all the basic things we hope they will continue at home. As a consequence of the lack of capacity in the scheme, these children are not being seen. Is the situation any better now than it was in 1985? No, I do not feel it is. I am still seeing too many children walk through my door with dental decay issues.

I had a case in point yesterday. A lovely nine-year-old boy was brought in to see me by his grandfather for his first dental checkup. He had no pain and no perceived problem. He told me he is in third class. The grandfather said he decided to bring the boy in because he was not seen in second class. His grandfather felt it was important to take him to see me. When I examined this delightful boy, I discovered a beautiful first adult molar with quite a decent-sized cavity. The granddad said he thought it was a baby tooth. It goes back to the fact that our ability to educate at an earlier stage is being missed. We are not able to do that. Prevention is so much cheaper than cure. We go on and on about prevention. It is the long game of helping children in our society and also helping the Exchequer with a saving of millions of euro in the future. Has the situation improved in Ireland? On the basis of my day-to-day experience as a clinician, I say it has not. I am still seeing far too much untreated dental disease in the patients walking through my door.