Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue and I also thank the Minister of State at the Department of Health for taking it. This is a long-standing issue in the midlands, especially in County Laois where I live and where I meet many students. There is a long orthodontic waiting list for school children in my constituency, It is particularly bad in County Laois. Tremendous work was done a few years ago by the HSE when it set up a clinic in Portlaoise on Saturday mornings. It ran for a long time and the backlog was cleared but the situation seems to have deteriorated again.

The issue has come into focus in recent months. I tabled a parliamentary question a month or two ago and I subsequently received a detailed reply from HSE midlands dated 4 May. I asked when the school dentist would visit Killeshin national school in County Laois, which is near Carlow town and the reply stated:

The public dental service in the midlands no longer carries out school dental screenings. Service provision for the last 15 years has been structured through screenings carried out in the dental surgery. The children in specific classes are invited to their public dental clinic for a full dental examination. Dental services in Laois screen and treat the sixth classes in national school in one academic year

This is the problem. I received a letter from the parents committee of Killeshin national school. I cite the school because the source of its problem is it is located only a few miles from Carlow town. A dental service regulation was passed in 2000 to deal with this issue.

The school dental screening programme dentists should visit primary schools each year to see children in second, fourth and sixth class. I do not mind whether the dentists come to the schools or the students are sent to the clinic by appointment. That is not the issue. I am categorically informed that in the neighbouring county of Carlow screening is carried out in second, fourth and sixth classes. The pupils are examined and treated in a fair manner.

However, that does not happen across the border in the schools in County Laois, where a number of the schools have confirmed to me that the children are 12 years of age and almost finished primary school in sixth class before they get their first screening. There is zero prospect in practically all cases of any treatment being given to them in that year. Essentially, the established practice in County Laois is that children just get a screening before they leave primary school and they are several years into their secondary school education before they get any follow-up treatment. If the Minister's information is different from mine, the information he has been given is not accurate. In many of the schools in Laois children get their first screening just before they leave at 12 years of age and many of them are between 14 and 16 years of age before they get their first dental treatment following that screening.

I presume this is due to a staffing issue. For some reason there is a big geographical divide in the country when it comes to dental screening and treatment. Children are sometimes long past doing their junior certificate before they get their first dental treatment. That is not the intention of the regulation, but that is what is happening.

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