Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was aware of the fire at St. Dymphna's and the resulting backlog. The two biggest issues are the out-of-hours service where if a child has a toothache on a Saturday or Sunday the parent must pay privately. Many parents do not have the money to pay for that. There are also questions of the time delay and of qualification; a child may be told that they can qualify for a brace but then it turns out that their bite is wrong or that it is a millimetre out. Some children are well deserving but parents cannot afford the treatment. We need to have a new look at the system and there should be an appeals system. There is none now and there is no way of addressing urgent cases that do not qualify under the scheme.