Noel O'Donovan (Fine Gael)

I will be brief. A lot of valid points have been made, and I do not want to repeat what has already been said. I thank the Minister of State for being in the House for this debate.

When talking about dentistry, certain words come to mind. When we go to dentists, we are all reminded of proper dental hygiene and brushing our teeth in the morning and evening. Some of us may well be guilty of not following through on that. This is how I see the issue of dentistry. People have become a bit complacent. This is not an issue that is discussed in the Houses very often. That is where we need change. I pay tribute to my Fine Gael colleagues for raising the matter in the House and to the former Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, for his presentation at a recent parliamentary party meeting. The statistics are staggering with regard to the number of available dentists and the drop in services for school dentistry. It is clear we have an issue.

As my colleague Senator Lynch said, it is not about system failures; this is about access and equality in our health service. In the area where I come from in west Cork, there are severe needs on the peninsulas outside the big towns and the city. I pay tribute to local councillor Caroline Cronin, who has been raising this issue with Cork County Council. It is good to see a follow-through here and that it is being raised at a national level. Some of the statistics are really serious, such as the number of children being seen dropping by 30,000 to 104,000 in 2023 compared with the 2017 figures. That is quite serious.

This is not just about calling out the issue and raising the problems that exist. The solutions are there. The development of new dental school in UCC is needed. The project needs €55 million. That is a lot of money, but it is not a great deal in terms of overall goal of getting more dentists into the system. We need to see movement on that. I welcome talk of mobile dental clinics is welcome too. It is about thinking outside the box.

I ask the Minister of State to take practical solutions from what has been discussed today, such as allowing retired dentists back into the school system. That is a really plausible option and solution. The retired dentists would not carry out major operations or services, but would analyse and assess. As the old saying goes, "prevention is better than a cure". That is what we need here. This system needs tinkering with. Looking at the State as a whole, we have issues in so many different sectors. Our population is growing and growing, and our services need to grow too. I ask the Minister of State to take this issue seriously.