Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Mairéad Farrell for her question. This has been raised many times over the last few months. The Government is aware of the importance of people's oral health and the need for them to have access to a dentist in the area in which they live.

I have an update. The Department of Health and the HSE officials met with representatives of the Irish Dental Association on 2 March, which was last week. At that meeting, the Department and the HSE proposed to increase fees across a number of items and proposed the reintroduction of scale and polish. These are interim steps. The Minister for Health hopes that the proposals that were presented to the IDA at the meeting on 2 March will stabilise and lead to an increase in the number of contractors in the DTSS. The Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has allocated an extra €10 million this year to get this over the line. This is on top of the €56 million that is already in the budget.

We are conscious of this and hope to get a resolution as soon as possible.

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