Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. The Minister is acutely aware that access to dental services for medical card holders under the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, has become an ever-increasing problem during the pandemic. The problem is that too many dentists contracted by the HSE to treat medical card patients have chosen to leave the scheme. This has led to difficulties for medical card patients in accessing dental care. There is the added problem of medical card patients being displaced by the abundance of private work. I know some parts of the country have been particularly affected and the Minister is very concerned about this.

The Minister has listened to the dentists and the Irish Dental Association and has heard their frustrations with the scheme. They are firmly of the view that the range of services available to patients under the scheme and the fees payable to contracted dentists are out of kilter in today's environment. The Minister does not disagree with them. He fully accepts there is a need to align the scheme with best international evidence and practice, as outlined in Smile agus Sláinte, the new national oral health policy which was published in 2019. Regrettably, the Covid-19 pandemic caused the roll-out of the policy to be delayed and the proposed reviews of the DTSS to be deferred. However, the Minister has given a commitment that there will be a root-and-branch review of the scheme, and his officials and the HSE expect to be in a position to begin that work early in the new year. In the meantime, he wants the contracted dentists and their representative association, the Irish Dental Association, to work with him and his officials to address the immediate issues of concern and ensure we have an abundance of dentists available to provide services to medical card patients.

The Minister has also heard what the dentists had to say about the viability of the scheme, and he wants that addressed too. He secured an additional €10 million in budget 2022 to address that problem and he hopes an agreement can be reached very quickly on how that money can be used to address some of the immediate problems with the scheme, pending the full root-and-branch review.

I am aware that a preliminary engagement with the Irish Dental Association was held in June this year and that the Minister's officials and the HSE will invite the Irish Dental Association in for further talks in the coming weeks. The Minister hopes the association will respond positively to that invitation in order that we can put in place immediate solutions for the benefit of patients and the dental community. In the meantime, his officials are engaging with the HSE public dental service, the in-house salaried service, which is seeking to provide cover for any medical card patients who are experiencing problems in accessing a service from their local dentist.

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