Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the commitment in the programme for Government around the improvement of dental services. In Laois-Offaly, we are in crisis. The Minister is standing in for the Taoiseach today. I want to get this addressed. The public scheme is not functioning properly. Dentists are not interested, in the main. Dentists have stopped taking patients for the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, full stop. Services cannot be gotten and people cannot access them. Those are the facts. The school scheme has also collapsed. In Laois, there are 16-year-old and 17-year-old children - teenagers - who have not yet seen a dentist in their lifetime. Those are the facts of it. The services in Laois-Offaly are in the dark ages. Services across CHO 8 are in severe difficulty. There is a budget and I am trying to find out how much it is. If the Minister could give me the figure, I would welcome it. I have been looking for it from the HSE. There is a budget and we have no service. Given that failure, will the Government now decide to train, recruit and employ public dentists-----

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