There are challenges in the provision of dental services and patients of all ages are waiting longer than they should to access care. This is not acceptable, but we are responding. This year, an additional €15 million was allocated in the budget to specifically deal with the issue. It is an unprecedented increase. Some €4 million of the allocation will target orthodontic care, prioritising those who have been waiting the longest to access treatment. Another €5 million is being invested to address backlogs in the pu…

I will make two points specifically on the DTSS. The first is that the fee structure did not keep pace with inflation and we saw a lot of dentists leave the scheme as a result. There are issues related to the administrative burden of the scheme but they have been a factor for a long time. In response to that, we significantly increased the fees paid to dentists, by between 40% and 60% per item. We did that in a single year. Any dentist who chooses to leave the DTSS can do so, and dentists can also choose to rejoin …

There was an issue with regard to young people which was driven in part by Covid. The school-based schemes were affected by Covid. Money is being put in to catch up on those schemes. The Deputy will be aware that, critically, I funded a new scheme this year. That will be very important in years to come. Almost €5 million has been provided for a preventative scheme for children aged from birth to seven. We will see the benefits of that in years to come. There are 30% more dentists in Ireland now than there were ten …

I will talk about the health sector response shortly, but I want to respond to some of the allegations I have just heard. It is extraordinary. People would think that colleagues opposite are the only people in here who care about people in this country. Deputy Bríd Smith spoke about feeding the myths, the lies and the hatred and yet she came in here and did exactly that.

Deputy Boyd Barrett talked about unity and solidarity. He said he does not want people to fall for the tricks of the far right and then he laid out tricks of the far left. He said we should not conflate real social problems that everyone in this House cares about with xenophobia and racism. He then spent his entire speech conflating those two things. I have sat beside the Taoiseach several times when he has responded to the Deputy's claims on this and he is right. In conflating real social challenges that everyone …

He should think about that and for once reflect on the fact that there may be other people elected to our national Parliament who care about the citizens of this country and the people we invite into this country.

The Deputy is very good at coming in here and accusing people of all sorts of things. He is very good at accusing the Government of not caring about the citizens of Ireland. However, he does not like it when people in government point out exactly what he is doing. I have the height of respect for Deputy Boyd Barrett and always have. He has essentially presented the march on Saturday as a march against racism, which I agree with, but he then conflated it by saying let us use it to attack the Government on issues rel…

-----and say there is no place in our country for racism, there is no place in this country for xenophobia and those who protest at places where children have fled from war in Ukraine. Those who protest outside on the streets are cowards and thugs in my opinion.

Why do we not actually act with unity and solidarity, and keep these two issues separate?

Let us speak with one voice on the fact that we must protect those fleeing persecution-----

-----and then by all means let us have the most heated of debates about what needs to happen around housing and health. However, would the Deputies opposite please stop pretending that the only people elected to this House who care about housing, healthcare and education are those in their parties and of the far-left? This Government has a long way to go on housing but last year-----

-----we built more social houses than in any year since the foundation of the State. The Deputies opposite will never acknowledge or accept that.

Last year the number of men, women and children waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets for care fell by 11%. The Deputies opposite will never acknowledge that. All they do is come in here and preach crisis, anger and fury, which is what they were referencing in their speeches.

How about we all speak with one voice in calling out the xenophobia and racism and say that Ireland is doing everything it can? While our response is imperfect, we are doing everything we can to welcome people into our country, provide the children with education and provide the men, women and children with access to healthcare. Over 50,000 medical cards have been provided and we have doctors, nurses and therapists working in every community in this country, doing their best to provide tens of thousands of men, wom…

-----which is why we are building more social homes than have ever been built.

More needs to be done and the Government is bending the resources of the State to that. However, could we please, for once, speak with exactly the unity Deputy Boyd Barrett talks about, call out the racism, bigotry, xenophobia and hatred and say to these men, women and children that they are welcome here-----

-----and that we will do everything we can to protect them? We will not get it all right but by God we will keep trying.

I thank the Deputy and acknowledge his ongoing work on rare diseases and, indeed, on access to orphan drugs. My intention is that the Mazars report will be published along with a view from Government as to the actions that can be taken in light of the report. That will happen shortly before Rare Disease Day.

As the Deputy would expect, I refute any allegation that we are not taking this seriously. We are, of course-----

An additional €15 million was put in place this year in the budget to address the DTSS and the backlogs for orthodontics and the school programme which, as we all appreciate, was delayed because of Covid. In this House, we talk a lot about what the Government needs to do to get dentists to sign up to the DTSS. Dentists are choosing to leave the DTSS because they make more money treating patients privately.