Dáil debates
Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Dental Treatment Services: Motion [Private Members]
3:50 am
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
There are 7,000 kids who have been waiting for dental treatment for more than a year. It is a damning figure and one the Government should be rightly ashamed of it. I am sure the Minister of State is ashamed of it. She might not put it on the record, but I am sure she looks at those figures and feels some shame. Despite the veneer of a public system, the vast majority of dental care is carried out in the private sector. We have heard from people who have been forced to go to the private sector and forced to take out loans just for something very basic in a civilised country. We should not really have to come in here to beg the Minister of State for dental services for kids, but this is the situation the Government has brought us to and the reason we are here this morning. I thank the Deputies who brought forward this motion.
The impact of the Government's failure to provide even basic checkups is felt by kids right through into secondary school and into adulthood. Added to the pressure to go to the private sector and to get a loan, what do people do if they are in bits with their teeth, in pain all night and cannot access the public system? God knows, people cannot get anywhere near it. They cannot wait a year and a half with a toothache. Dentists now have in their waiting rooms - and I saw this last week - signs saying buy now, pay later. There was a brochure with a lovely big picture featuring a lovely woman with a big smile on her face, as if buying now and paying later would give you the toothy smile of your dreams. Every person I spoke to in that dentist's waiting room was someone in pain and on a low income who was getting into short-term debt they could not simply for the privilege of not having a toothache. The figures speak for themselves.
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