If you want to understand the true state of a nation's healthcare system, do not just look at its emergency rooms or its hospital beds. Look at its smiles. Look at the teeth of its children, the stress lines of its working class and the growing bills on the kitchen tables of ordinary families. In 2026, Ireland is celebrated globally for economic prosperity, technological innovation and a soaring population but beneath that shiny surface lies a painful systematic reality. Dental and orthodontic services in Ireland are in state of absolute crisis. There has been a 4% decline in the number of dentists employed by the HSE in the past seven years. There has been a 31% decrease in the number of dental surgeons employed by the HSE since 2005 despite population growth of 32%. There are 27% fewer whole-time equivalent dentists now compared with 2019 and 25.3% fewer dental nurse whole-time equivalents than there were in 2019, with 7.7% of those in the Cork-Kerry region. The crisis hits no one harder than our children. Our target primary school screening programme, once the jewel of preventative care, is broken. Recent data reveals that over 100,000 eligible schoolchildren were completely denied dental screenings because the number of public HSE dentists per capita has steadily fallen, leaving dozens of vital roles permanently vacant. Only about half of our students are getting checked when they should. What happens when children clear that hurdle and need structural help? They enter the punishing labyrinth of HSE orthodontic waiting lists. Right now, more than 11,000 people, mostly children, are stranded on waiting lists for braces and jaw surgeries in some regions. Families face a six-year wait for public orthodontics. I ask the Minister of State to think about that. A child identified with a severe agonising bite deformity at age 11 might not see a specialist until they are nearly an adult. The data from the Irish Dental Association also shows 979 children waiting in HSE South West, of whom 438 have been on the list for over a year, 277 waiting in the HSE Dublin and South East region, of whom 172 have been on the list for over 12 months, and 81 on the HSE Mid West list who have been waiting over 12 months for a general anaesthetic. Too many children are leaving primary school without ever having had a dental screening. In 2023, fewer than 104,000 children were screened out of an eligible cohort of 208,000. What we are witnessing today is what professional bodies, such as the Irish Dental Association, have rightly called a poor law service, a regression to an outdated, unequal system where decent, timely oral care has effectively become a luxury for those who can pay and a lottery of charity for those who cannot. The foundation of our public oral health network is crumbling for years. The dental treatment service scheme was meant to guard the most vulnerable, namely, our medical card holders. That scheme has fundamentally collapsed. Private practitioners are withdrawing from State schemes in droves because they are forced to operate under austerity era rules dating back to the financial crisis.

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