Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Chathaoirleach agus céad míle fáilte roimh na múinteoirí agus na daltaí. I hope they have a wonderful day here. I acknowledge the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, who is a Rossie like myself. I know he has been dealing with this issue and that people have been coming to him in relation to the dental treatment service scheme. I am getting a lot of representations about it as well.

We all have to acknowledge the importance of oral health and dental care. Dental and oral health is an essential part of one's overall health and well-being. Poor oral hygiene can lead to dental cavities and gum disease and other diseases as well. It is, therefore, important that we have an excellent dental service.It really is important that we have an excellent dental service. Unfortunately, at the moment, we have many difficulties under the medical card scheme that applies to 16-year-olds and over. Like many Oireachtas Members, this representation is made to me an ongoing basis by people not able to get the service.

In fairness to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, and the other Ministers of State in the Department, an additional €10 million in budget 2022 was put in place. I understand €16 million that was not spent in 2021 is also being used to try to improve the situation.

One of the big problems we have is a lack of dentists to do the work. I am afraid that if we cannot bring those people back into the system, we will have an ongoing problem. This is not just unique to Ireland. I read that thousands of dentists have left the free dental scheme under the National Health Service, NHS, in England. It is happening here. Many dentists do not want that work and do not want to do that business anymore. They are not buying into the scheme. It is time for new ideas and new ways forward. I do not have any magic solution. I do not know whether the Minister of State has any magic solution this morning. We must realise and understand that dental healthcare is extremely important, particularly for young people.

It is not good enough that people have to wait and suffer. As we all know, some of those dental healthcare problems can become lifelong problems for people if they are not handled at an early age. Most politicians, irrespective of what side of the House they are on, whether they are in government or in opposition, know we have a massive problem here. It is not really a political problem as such but we must try to try to solve it. It is up to us to solve it. We have a problem within the system of getting dentists to serve all over the country and to do that work.

I will not detain the Minister of State any longer on this. I await his reply. It is not going to be a simple problem to solve. I am very concerned about people having to wait long periods for dental care, however. As I said, it is something that really needs to be looked after from an early age for people and it is a problem that the political system will have to tackle.