Speaking on the day of last December’s budget, Deputy Noel Coonan forecast the rotting effect of the Government’s decision to axe the Dental Treatment Benefit Scheme which allowed PRSI-entitled patients to be subsidised for routine procedures. Against all advice, the Government bulldozed ahead on that same day in their Budget and scrapped the State-sponsored dental scheme. Nine months later the dental health of North Tipperary constituents is corroding and not only that but dentist practices are starting to close their doors as business fades away.

Deputy Coonan spoke with Dr. Paul O’Dwyer, a dentist who served the Newport area for the last decade but who has been forced to shut up shop as a result of heartless Government cutbacks. Dr. Dwyer featured in last week’s Irish Times Health Supplement where he wrote an article entitled ‘Why I’m closing my practice’.

“Forty percent of Paul’s patient base evaporated overnight when the Government cut the medical card and PRSI schemes. The Government collapsed these hugely popular schemes under the cover of darkness. While the PRSI scheme was axed in December’s Budget, in April the HSE announced medical card holders would forthwith be entitled to ‘emergency cover only’. Contracting dentists such as Dr. O’ Dwyer were not informed of this move and it was left to practitioners to tell medical card holders they were no longer entitled to routine dental treatment under the Dental Treatment Services Scheme,” said Deputy Noel Coonan.

“This is the type of ignorance we have come to expect from a hopeless and fruitless Government. The Fianna Fáil and Green parties and the Independents have turned their back on the public and consequently almost two million persons entitled to treatment under the PRSI scheme are postponing, if not cancelling, their treatment. At the same time, this Government pumps billions of taxpayers money into bailing out corrupt banks,” continued the local Fine Gael TD.

“Looking ahead to the next general election, I do not understand how people can have any confidence in the combination of Greens, Independents and Fianna Fáil who have created an Ireland where people are being continuously stripped of their entitlements, where a third of young people are on the dole and 43% of jobless are now long-term unemployed. More than 65,000 people are set to emigrate this year and we need these people to help rebuild our economy.

“Sadly, Paul’s practice is one of many suffering to stay afloat in North Tipperary and I will be strongly raising this unacceptable situation in the Dáil chamber with the Minister for Health. Dr. Dwyer is suffering and so is the dental health of the two million patients who this time last year could use their PRSI entitlements to subsidise routine procedures such as fillings and extractions.

Deputy Coonan said Fine Gael recognise people want a Government which puts job creation and growth at the heart of its policy making. Since the very start of the crisis Fine Gael has produced policies to get people back to work including the NewERA policy and a youth jobs strategy. “Meanwhile An Taoiseach Brian Cowen only last week held a jobs meeting with State agencies when the situation was deteriorated massively and it is too little too late,” concluded the local Fine Gael TD.