Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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This issue concerns children up to 16 years of age. They are not being seen in County Laois, in most cases, before the age of 16, which means that they go to secondary school without ever having seen the school dentist. The public system for adults, provided through the medical card scheme, has completely collapsed. People who are already in the system cannot access dental services and dentists will not take new patients. There are no dentist that we can find who are willing to do it. We have checked, and my secretary has gone to a lot of effort in doing so. There is not one who will take on new medical card patients. There is no dental scheme, so what is the money going into? Why is there a budget? Are dentists being recruited? Are the terms of employment not adequate? Are they being offered three-month contracts that are useless, or something like that? What is the problem? Surely, in a developed economy, we are capable of training dentists and having dentists in place to provide services, such as this. In the 1960s, they used to do it. I know, because I attended them. All the other members here, regardless of whether they are 20 or 60, will have seen a school dentist.