The Minister of State mentioned access issues nine individual times in her opening address. I am going to tell her what these so-called access issues really involve. A mother told me she had spent three weeks trying to contact the school-age dental team and when she finally got through this morning she was told nothing could be done, not even in an emergency, until that child's school was called, despite the case being referred to as "urgent" by a private dentist. The mother of a young girl with autism spectrum disorder, hypoplastic teeth and a severe 8.5 mm overjet was provided with documentation indicating that the girl would qualify under national criteria while simultaneously being told that she did not qualify under the modified regional criteria. Parents should not have to navigate contradictory and inconsistent rules to get dental care for their child. The last aspect I will bring to the Minister of State's attention are medical card patients. They are really struggling. A constituent told me she had no option but to have a tooth extracted because she simply did not have the cash to stretch as far as a filling. They are what the Minister of State is calling "access issues". They are not access issues. That is an abject failure of this scheme. The Minister of State cannot continue to ignore a shortage of dentists while failing to adequately address workforce planning. Sinn Féin has consistently called for more training places, a workforce strategy that retains graduates here and investment directly into our public dental service, rather than continuing to rely on crisis management. It is an absolute shame that this Government stands over a system where half of primary school children leave school without ever having received a screening appointment. At the health committee we heard of children who, when they were finally called for that screening programme, drove themselves to their dental appointment. Where is that in the Government's two-year action plan? Is that going to be covered by the initiatives the Government will consider in surgical hubs that do not yet exist? That is why change is needed and needed now.

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Thank you, Deputy.

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Deputy, your time is up. I call Deputy Danny Healy-Rae.

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