asked the Minister for Health if he will make funds available to the Eastern Health Board to enable them to provide dental treatment for all primary school children, having regard to the fact that at present an anomalous situation exists whereby treatment is provided for all children under the age of six but from six years onwards only national school children together with medical card holders and their dependants are catered for.
Written Answers. - Dental Treatment.
71.
The Health Act, 1970, requires the health boards, including the Eastern Health Board, to make dental, ophthalmic and aural treatment available to children in whom defects have been detected at the child health examinations organised by the health boards. Child health examinations are provided in accordance with the Act for children under the age of six years; pupils attending a national school; and pupils attending a school which is not a national school where the governing body of that school makes a request to a health board to provide such examinations and where the health board, which has discretion in this regard, may by order provide child health examinations at that school.
It is, therefore, open to the governing body of any primary school which is not a national school to make an application to a health board for child health services, including dental services and it would be a matter for the health board to consider such a request in the light of available resources.