The Dental Health Action Plan provides for the setting of oral health goals and the improvement of oral health promotion and preventive programmes including substantial capital investment in the national fluoridation programme; a significant enhancement of the public dental services through a more clearly defined role for health board dentists concentrating to a large extent on oral health care and services for children. There will be a significant increase in manpower; the extension of eligibility to children under 16 years of age; the improvement of secondary care orthodontic services through the recruitment of additional consultant orthodontists and support staff; the expansion of hospital based oral surgery services through the appointment of additional consultant oral surgeons and support staff; the introduction of new arrangements for the provision of adult dental services with the participation of private dental practitioners. Health board dentists will be entitled to participate in these arrangements. The provision of services for adults will be phased in on the basis of age cohorts commencing with the over 65s; a programme commencing shortly to provide full dentures to medical card holders over 65 who require them; an emergency service will be available to all medical card holders on demand and a new Dublin dental hospital and school.
Considerable progress has been made in implementing the 1994 phase of the action plan as follows: legislation to enable me to extend eligibility to children under 16 is now in place. I propose to extend eligibility to those under 14 years of age later this year; in excess of £1.5 million has been provided to health boards for the development of children's dental services; £1 million has been provided to health boards for the development of orthodontic services; funding has now been provided to the Mid-Western and the Western Health Boards to establish consultant oral surgery services in their regions.