Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)

I have now been seven months in this House. This is another important debate that is going on in this House, but let us have a look at the benches. There is not one member of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil on the backbenches. Not even the senior Minister bothered to turn up. Instead, we are left with the Minister of State. With all due respect to him, and I appreciate him coming to the House, we do not have the senior Minister here. Instead, we have the Minister of State for housing and older people, when we are talking about a dental issue. We are talking about one of the most important issues in this country, that of oral hygiene and oral health, and not one of those Ministers have turned up. Where is the Minister for Health? She is too busy looking for the Tánaiste's job rather than doing her own job. That is the reality of it. I am sitting here and looking at this continuously. Nobody is showing up for debates. Nobody is interested in what is going on in the country.

I met with a family in Cork the other day. They had to pay €1,900 because the dental hospital turned them away as it was a weekend. They were lucky enough to be able to get credit and money from the credit union. It was €1,900, despite having a medical card. I meet parents every day of the week whose children are on six-year waiting lists for orthodontist services. Most of them have gone off those lists because what happens when they hit 16, 17 or 18 years of age, and still have not seen a dentist or orthodontist, is they go into the adult cases. No wonder people are flying to Turkey to get their mouths reset. It is because they have no other opportunity. They do not see dentists or are two years waiting to see a dentist. There is not one dentist in my hometown of Mallow who will take a medical card. There is not one dentist in Mallow who will take DTSS patients. That is the reality of it. People are going away from it.

The Minister of State knows as well as I do that with the stroke of a pen he could fix this problem. To fix that problem, the same deal given to GPs needs to be given to dentists because this is a serious matter of oral hygiene for the entire country. We are not looking after people at all, whether children, men or women. It is impossible to get a dentist appointment. It is an absolute disgrace.

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