Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I accept the concerns the Deputy has set out, but I wish to provide some detail. Additional funding of €10 million has been provided in budget 2022, on top of the existing level of service provision of €56 million. This additional allocation should enable progress to be made in addressing issues around service provision for medical card patients in 2022, which are the sort of measures the Deputy is concerned about. I understand that under the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, which provides dental care free of charge to medical card holders aged over 16, services are provided by independent dental practitioners who have a contract with the HSE. It was always the intention of the Department to undertake a complete review of that contract when the new national oral health policy was launched. The Covid pandemic has caused the roll-out of the policy to be delayed and the proposed contract review to be deferred. As I understand it, it is still very much the intention to address the long-term issue.

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