Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

I raise the serious matter of the closure of a dental practice in Oranmore, County Galway, more than three years ago. Approximately 200 patients and families have been left in an utter predicament and have been subjected to partial treatment, no treatment and so on. They have engaged. All of the TDs at the time had a meeting with the Dental Council. There is utter frustration and anger that the people involved have been left in this predicament. They are asking for a number of things. The first and most basic is that the Dental Council would come before the health committee. They are also asking for the gaps that exist in relation to the monitoring of practices be looked at. Obviously, the orthodontist involved had serious health problems. I am not going into that; we will take it as a given. However, the consequences of this mean families were left with nothing. It is three years later. Other colleagues and I have raised this in the past and done our best. We have got nowhere. The families are still struggling for accountability in respect of what happened.

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