asked the Minister for Health if he will consider subsidising private practitioners to supply orthodontic treatment for medical card holders and eligible children until such time as the State is able to provide a complete service.

Health boards already avail of the services of orthodontists in private practice to provide treatments for eligible persons.

Will the Minister expand on that reply because it is a practice I am not familiar with? In the course of his reply to the last question the Minister indicated that he was negotiating the type of scheme I had in mind. The Minister said he was involved in discussions with private orthodontists and I welcome that. Will the Minister develop on that?

Health boards already avail of the services of orthodontists who are in private practice to provide treatment for eligible persons. All the health boards avail of the services in providing orthodontic treatment for eligible persons. However, for more than two years private orthodontists have not been used except in a few extremely urgent cases to provide fixed appliances in orthodontic treatment. There are two types of appliances involved in this treatment, those that are fixed and those that are not. There is only a small problem with regard to some appliances but there is a bone of contention between the Department of Health and private orthodontists about the fixed appliances. The Department have failed to get agreement with the private orthodontists on a scale of fees for this type of work. Recently, when a scale of fees was accepted by both sides, the orthodontists indicated that they were not prepared to implement it unless they could be guaranteed that a specific sum of money would be made available by health boards for this type of treatment on an annual basis. Negotiations are in progress between the private orthodontists and the Department to try to iron out the problem.

How much money was paid to orthodontists on a private basis last year?

I do not have that information.

Does the Minister anticipate that this mechanism will lead to a reduction in the shocking figure on the waiting list? Will it be this mechanism rather than the employment of State orthodontists that will ease the problem?

It will be a combination of the two. If we got a combination of the two things working in the way we would like to have them, it is possible that the waiting list would be drastically reduced in a short time.