Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)

The lack of dentists and orthodontists across the State is a long-running problem that I raised when I became a councillor in Clare County Council and have since raised in the Dáil since my having become a TD. Not only has there been no progress in this time but things have gone from bad to worse, despite the lip service paid to the problem by the Government. There was a 46% reduction in investment in dental treatment service schemes between 2017 and 2021 and a devastating 50% reduction in the number of dentists practising in the scheme in the past decade. These figures have been available to the Government and they should have acted as a wake-up call, but they have fallen on fell on deaf ears, it seems.

On the basis of the most recent figures I have received, eight dentists are still practising under the DTSS in Clare. I first sounded the alarm bell when the number had reduced to 17, so the situation is beyond alarming now. There are no orthodontists in Clare. Patients are referred to St. Camillus Hospital, Limerick, and languish on the waiting list there. Recently, a constituent of mine was told her daughter would have to wait from three to four years to have braces fitted. By then, she would have started college. That girl was in pain and her mother was at her wits' end, and since there was no hope in sight for them, they ended up going private. I had contacted the Department about this. This is just one example of many.

In response to the number of constituents coming to me who are unable to find a dentist, I phoned around in Clare and discovered none of the practising dentists was taking on new patients with medical cards. That is another of the Government's failures. Another is chronic overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick, which is also impacting on this problem.

Some dental patients require anaesthesia for extractions, and when the hospital is forced by overcrowding to enact surge capacity protocols, it cancels day procedures, including dental extractions. There are no dental anaesthesiologists in Ennis hospital. Failure to treat dental problems promptly can have serious long-term impacts on a person's health. Tooth infections can cause sinus infections, which can be serious. They can also lead to bacteria in the blood and can increase the chances that a tooth that could have been treated ends up being extracted.

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