asked the Minister for Health whether there are any proposals from the Wexford County Council for a scheme to provide free dentures for holders of medical service cards.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wexford Free Dentures Scheme.
1.
I have not received any recent proposals from Wexford County Council for the provision of dentures for persons in the lower income group.
In accordance with the policy recommended to health authorities, the Council is concentrating its limited resources in dental personnel and equipment mainly on the provision of services for eligible children as, in the long run, they stand to benefit more from dental treatment. I understand that the Council, of late, has found it difficult to maintain even the services for children due to the general difficulty of recruiting sufficient whole-time dental officers for the local authority service.
While the initiation of a scheme for making available dentures to the lower income group is primarily a matter for the Council, it will be appreciated, in the existing circumstances, that the Council could not be expected to introduce such a scheme when it could only do so at the expense of the inadequate service being provided for children.