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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 May 1962

Vol. 195 No. 1

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - National Dental Health Service.

22.

asked the Minister for Health whether in view of the most disturbing findings of the recent dental health survey he has any plans for immediate implementation to provide a freely available dental health service on a national scale.

I presume that the Deputy is referring to the report which I presented to the Oireachtas on 25th April, 1962, on the survey conducted under the auspices of the Medical Research Council of the incidence of dental caries in school children in the Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow Health authority areas.

The findings of the survey by the Medical Research Council, though disturbing in showing unmistakably the extremely high incidence and prevalence of dental caries among school children in the three areas, were not unexpected. The survey simply confirmed what was well known to health authorities and to members of the dental profession, and amply proved the need for preventive measures to combat dental decay. The most effective measure of this nature is to give children the benefit of fluoridation which studies elsewhere have shown can reduce the rate of dental decay among children by up to two thirds and, as already publicly announced, I propose to make Regulations shortly under the Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act, 1960, providing for the fluoridation of public piped water supplies in the Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow health authority areas.

For reasons which I have already explained on several occasions to the House, it would be unrealistic to attempt to provide, as the Deputy has suggested, "a freely available dental health service on a national scale."

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