I thank the witnesses for their very comprehensive presentations. I apologise for having to leave the meeting but I had a prior commitment on another issue. I am not sure if the following issue was raised while I was away. It is about the whole area of training. The RCSI made the point to us regarding training that there was no foundation year. When one is training in medicine, there is an intern year. The RCSI says, however, that there is no foundation year in dentistry. The second issue is the lack of available training for people who want to specialise. We do not appear to have a structure or the structure we have is not training enough people. We have people who require specialist treatment, but we do not have enough practitioners in the area. How do we improve training? There are many people who come out with qualifications from university and appear to leave the country at a very early stage. Some of them come back but many do not. How do we work on that?

I refer to the number of dentists employed in the public sector and trying to provide the required support for children going to school. The committee has been advised that some children might be in sixth class before they receive any dental examination. How do we deal with that issue?

I refer to the development of primary care centres, of which there are more than 120 nationally. Dental health is an important aspect of people's health. How many primary care centres have facilities for dentists to operate in? I am not sure that has occurred. I have seen new primary care centres open with facilities for every other part of healthcare but not dentistry. Has any lobbying taken place to ensure that when primary care centres are rolled out, they cover all health areas, including dentistry? Could we have some figures on the number of primary care centres with the capacity to accommodate dentists?

I am not clear that provision is being made. Those are my initial questions on those issues.