On this very important motion by Sinn Féin, I raise the significant issue of the dental treatment service scheme. Last year in the Dáil, I, along with my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, spoke about this scheme and about how it is simply not working. I refer to the number of people who come to constituency offices right across this country who tell us they are medical card holders but they cannot get access to a dentist in their locality. It is just not acceptable that a medical card holder in this country cannot get access to basic services like dentistry. The people who often take the blame for this are the dentists themselves. I spoke to a dentist practising in my home town of Mallow today who told me she saw a medical card holder, a patient of hers, last week. The cost of the dental treatment was €333. She received €109 from the HSE through the service scheme. Why, if I was a dentist, would I stay in that scheme? I would not because I am not covering the basic costs. Dentists themselves also have to live. We are failing two cohorts of people here. We are failing the very dentists we have in this country who are doing their best to provide the care needed in the country, and we are also failing those who have medical cards who very much need the dentistry care. I worked previously for former Deputy Seán Sherlock who was a TD for 17 years, and year on year he would tell me about the significant issues being faced right across the constituencies by those who cannot access dentistry. If a constituent comes to me seeking my support in accessing a dentist who will take them on as a medical card holder, I have to ring around - and I do it because they are constituents of mine - different dentists across the county to ask them if they will take on a medical card holder. In the north Lee catchment area, which covers my constituency of Cork North-Central, 66 dentists have left the dental treatments service scheme in the past five years while just over 20 have joined the scheme. Give or take, about 40 dentists have left that scheme. That should speak wonders to those who are in charge of our health service. It should speak wonders to the HSE in relation to the system itself and the scheme being provided. It is simply not working and it is unacceptable for us, as politicians, to stand in this House and to speak about it year after year, from Dáil term to Dáil term, without actually fixing the problem. We have a system that is not working. We must change it for the benefit of the people across this country who rely on this care and for the very dentists who provide it. It is a system that is not working and we must change it. It is as simple as that. We must provide effective dentistry care in this country for everybody. There is a socioeconomic issue here as well. People who are on medical cards may be those who are less well-off than those who can pay the all-out cost of dentistry care. There is a socioeconomic problem here as well. It is vulnerable people who are being left behind. We need to fix this dental treatment service scheme because it is not working.

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