Once again there is a crisis for families and primary school children in Counties Wicklow and Wexford and across the State. From Bunclody right up to An Bhearn Dearg, from Rathdrum to Kilmuckridge, children are waiting not months but years to have their teeth checked and attended to. My background is in primary school teaching and half of children at primary school level are not receiving dental screening appointments, something that was standard 50 years ago when this country was supposed to have been poor. More than 11,000, mostly children, are waiting on dental treatment, with over 8,000 for more than a year. Some 40% of children are on a waiting list two years for braces. In counties Wicklow and Wexford, almost 900 young people are waiting between three and four years for orthodontic treatment. It gets worse. Following a parliamentary question I submitted last year, in 2025, the HSE admitted that the public dental service was still only targeting children who were in second or sixth class in 2019. That means many children in counties Wicklow and Wexford have simply been left behind, and could be in their leaving certificate cycle before being seen by a dentist, instead of having been seen in sixth class in primary school. This is unbelievable in a super-wealthy country in 2026. Meanwhile, the number of dentists available locally under the dental treatment services scheme has collapsed by 50% in County Wexford and 25% in County Wicklow over the past seven years. That is not an accident; it is a failure of planning, investment and political will. Let us be clear about what needs to happen. The Minister of State needs to publish a real action plan to cut the waiting lists fast, modernise the DTSS, restart school screening immediately, integrate this with the GP visit card, invest properly in public dental services, expand access to dental nurses and hygienists and introduce a dental Act. I ask him to vote for our motion to bring about these changes.

Sentiment score: -0.08