Dental treatment for children aged six and under should be prioritised, a new report has stated.

According to the first National Oral Health Forum Report, A Vision for Improved Oral Health in Ireland, the Government's decision to provide universal healthcare for all children aged under six provides the perfect opportunity to extend dental cover to this age group.

This would result in children becoming engaged with dental services at a younger age, which would lead to more disease prevention.

The report also highlighted the impact of the recession on dental services in Ireland. The PRSI scheme used to allow taxpayers to receive subsidies towards certain dental work, such as fillings. However, spending on this scheme has fallen from over €70 million per year to just €10 million per year and taxpayers now only receive one dental check-up per year.

Meanwhile services for mental card holders have also been severely cut, leading to poorer dental health for many.

In response to this, the report recommends that the use of patient co-payments should be assessed as a potential method of payment for medical card patients. This would see the patient and the State both making a contribution, not unlike the old PRSI model, to ensure that patients receive the appropriate treatment when they need it.

The report also said that the roles of the HSE and the Department of Health need to be clearly defined in this area.

"Delivery decisions in the HSE need to be matched to clinical needs and prioritised in line with the available resources. At the moment the delivery of services is considered to be patchy, with no uniform patterns of delivery decision or priority setting," the Forum said.

The report added that when it comes to dentistry, the main interests seem to relate to fluoridation and orthodontics and there is little or no political representation about important issues such as the provision of dental services to people with disabilities, and the prevalence and suffering caused by cavities during childhood.

The report is an initiative promoted mainly by the Irish Dental Association, the Dublin Dental School, the Cork Dental School and the RCSI Faculty of Dentistry.