The Minister said that he sought funding, but he has been successful in obtaining it and I compliment him and his Department for that. This section will put an increased burden on the health boards. For instance, the Eastern Health Board currently has 4,000 people on its orthodontic waiting list, which does not include other dental service waiting lists. This Bill, when enacted, will make additional eligibility for some 190,000 people in the country and 51,000 in the Eastern Health Board area. Is the Minister satisfied that the £4.4 million provided in the Bill will cover this extra increase? I am sure the Minister would not want to give false hope to people in the area of dental care. I would like to have the Minister's views on that matter. If that funding is only for a half year, what will the extra funding be for a full year?
Health (Amendment) Bill, 1993: Committee and Final Stages.
There is a tendency to boil everything down to money, but everything cannot necessarily be addressed in this manner. The trust I wish to bring to the health services — and I speak in global terms — is, first, that the focus of the dental teams currently employed in the public service through the health boards will be on children to ensure that a good service is available to children. This can only be achieved if we take the pressure of the adult eligible people off these services and I have been working on a mechanism to do that. That is why I have been involved in discussions with the Irish Dental Association.
It is my intention that, in increments over the next three years, the adult eligible community will be treated by private dentists so that the health board dentists will focus exclusively, or largely, on children in due course. I intend to resource this measure. I have announced the initial allocation for 1994, and we are already five months into this year. I make no secret that there are considerable financial implications in this plan and it is my intention to resource it with the help of my colleagues in Government, who are enthusiastic in their support for improvements in dental health over the four years.
It is important to make the point that I do not wish to raise people's hopes. This is an incremental plan. It will not solve all the problems of 20 years in one year, but at the end of four years we will have a service for children and adults which will be of pride to us all.