Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I respect the response outlined. I am well aware that new dentures can be provided every five years, but that is if a patient can access a dentist.

That is the issue here. Then there is the medical stuff that goes with it. Oral health is vital. The Minister of State's written statement reads, "The HSE is required to support the provision of emergency care to adult medical card holders who have difficulty accessing a local dentist." In the case I am talking about, the gentleman was told a year and three months ago he would be waiting two years. Three weeks ago, he was told he would be waiting another two years. That is not a very proactive way to provide emergency care for adults.

When I was speaking to the gentleman, he laughed. The older generation always have a good sense of humour and a bit of fun. He said he would be like the elderly couple in the burger restaurant. The husband was sitting across from the wife and they had the burger cut in half. She was chewing her half but he had not touched his. A young couple spotted them and did not know what was going on but assumed they were sharing the burger. The young gentlemen went up, purchased another burger and dropped it at the table of the older couple. He told the man to have that burger and let his wife have the other burger. The other man said he was missing the point, that there was nothing wrong with the cost of the burger and that he was waiting for her to finish eating her half of the burger so he could use her dentures to chew his half. That is the story that gentleman told me.

The Minister of State mentioned the HSE assisting people. It assists people by telling them it is tough luck, to go away and get things fixed again and come back in two years. That has to be revisited. The written statement reads, "The HSE is required to support the provision of emergency care to adult medical card holders who have difficulty accessing a local dentist." That is where the problem is. They cannot access them and the HSE is not helping them to do it. It is just giving them the hard luck story. I do not know where we will go from here. I do not know what I will do or what I will tell this gentleman and others when I go back to my constituency at the weekend.

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