Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think the problem is outside the HSE structure. Again, the figures speak for themselves. Some 100,000 children did not receive access to dental care last year. It seems to be a whole area of health we have fallen down on and there clearly needs to be a different focus on it.

Another group, Vision Ireland, was in. Again, it talked about a lack of strategy in this whole area. One of the things that sort of jumped out at me was when it said one of the challenges it was facing as an organisation - and I would say this is multiplied right across the system - was increased bureaucracy since the regional health areas, or RHAs, were established. It said it used to have to get contracts with nine CHOs, now it is 21 RHAs. I would have thought that whatever the structure we were establishing would have streamlined some of that.