asked the Minister for Health the date his Department received proposals from Kerry County Council to extend school dental services to the schools in the West Kerry peninsula and other parts of the county; and if he will state the cause of the delay in sanctioning the proposals.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - West Kerry School Dental Services.
11.
I should like to point out that dental services for school children are already being provided by Kerry County Council in the county generally by means of three whole-time dental officers who examine and treat children in schools and local authority centres. For some time past, however, the Council have operated, under their school health service, a scheme by which dental treatment for school children in the urban areas of Tralee, Killarney and Listowel is provided by local dentists in their own surgeries under special arrangements made by the Council. On the 7th May last the Council wrote to my Department enquiring if I would agree, in principle, to the extension of this scheme to a number of other towns in the county and, presumably, this is the proposal referred to by the Deputy.
The scheme based on the special arrangements with private dentists in the three towns above named, is of an experimental character, however, and before I would be prepared to approve of its extension to any other part of the county, I would require to be satisfied that the arrangements proposed would be a suitable alternative to the provision of services by whole-time dental officers. The matter is being examined by my Department in this light and I shall convey my decision to the Council as soon as possible.