Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will look at this from a different vantage than the previous speaker. When I was walking across the city this morning, I listened to the Ombudsman for Children responding to the child poverty report, which, once again, highlights that the level of child poverty in this State is increasing. Then, I came in here to talk about this motion. I thank Deputy Shortall for bringing it forward. The first call we have in our motion concerns the fact that there are an estimated 104,000 children on waiting lists for school screenings and dental services for which 208,000 children are eligible. Poverty, in and of itself, and child poverty in particular, relates to the resources people are expected to go without. The child poverty report contains mention of warm coats, a second pair of shoes and meals.

We also know that access to basic health provision is a part of poverty. One of the more important and fundamental aspects of life is basic healthcare. We have a crisis of dental healthcare in our country. Unlike most crises here, it is not experienced evenly. I can promise the Members here right now that the children on that waiting list are living in some of our most disadvantaged and deprived areas. These are the same children who are being asked to go without in terms of the conditions in which they live and who have been factored into these figures contained in the report.

That is the most shocking and scandalous part of this. It compounds the problem by piling hardship on top of hardship. I do not see an urgency to address what is happening. I do not believe the rhetoric employed by the Government. It is not going to oppose the motion, but what will it do? Will the targets be acted upon?

In the past five years there has been a 31% reduction in the number of children seen by HSE dentists. We do not need to ask where these children live. They live in the areas that are on the margins. They are at the coalface of the housing crisis and of the healthcare crisis. They are the same children who have to go without heat in the winter and who will not get to visit the cinema in summer. They are also the ones who do not get access to dental treatment. It is an absolute scandal. The number of HSE dentists declined by 23% between 2006 and 2022. In terms of access to dental care, what cohort of people in Ireland will be most impacted? Depending on their incomes, wealthier people will not have to go without dental healthcare. They will see the dentist frequently, whereas for those in other parts of the country that are underserved and under-resourced, the inequality of basic provision of healthcare will compound all the other inequalities experienced.

The number of medical card patients seen under the dental treatment service scheme, DTSS, is down 35% in the past ten years. I do not see that being addressed as a matter of urgency. If the number of people able to access dental treatment through the medical card is down, once again the people experiencing poverty are going to be impacted infinitely more. Yet, where is the urgency and the sense that this is going to impact on a societal level? It is hitting people, quite literally, in their mouths. It is a cruel, unjust form of State violence, consciously enforced upon a cohort of the population because of a state of indifference from successive Governments.

Of the 810 dentists currently signed up to the DTSS, only 600 are active. The Minister for Health announced in May 2021 that he would instruct his officials to begin talks on a new scheme as a matter of urgency. The latter are not our words, they were uttered by the Minister in 2021. As 2024 approaches its midpoint and there is no progress, I have to question the interpretation of the word "urgency". Urgency is when a mother in my constituency has to bring a child to the dentist for emerging gum disease or an accident. When they get there, they discover that they do not have access to the service.

It is extraordinary that last year 50% of the 300 students enrolled in our dental school in Cork were from overseas. The fact that they come from overseas is no reflection on those people. It is a poor reflection on the fact that this is how we are expected to finance dental training. Inevitably, those students will take the training they have been given and go back to their home countries. We will also have 150 dental students. That is a poor reflection on the State and on the priority that we place on dental and oral healthcare. It is indicative of the fact that the people most likely to suffer are those who have already been impacted through the various crises that have impacted upon this State. It is inequality, and it creates the conditions of a State that is indifferent. How could it not be? It is a State that does not seem to have in mind as a priority the people at the coalface of suffering, namely children, people on medical cards and those experiencing poverty.

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