A six-year-old autistic boy from Waterford, who was told he could face a ten-year wait to have three teeth removed, has secured an emergency appointment to have the procedure carried out next Thursday.
Tiernan Murphy-Power's father said it was like 10 Christmases coming at once when they got the phone call today, after the issue was raised in the Dáil yesterday.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the case during Leaders' Questions, saying that delays to children's dental treatment was "unacceptable".
She told the Dáil that Tiernan was one of 7,000 children waiting for more than a year for urgent and serious orthodontic care and that of that number, 1,100 children are waiting more than four years.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it was "absolutely unacceptable" that a child was being denied urgent care and said he would discuss the issue with the Health Service Executive CEO Bernard Gloster.
Tiernan's father, Eamonn Murphy, said the family were told on more than one occasion that they could be waiting up to ten years on the public waiting list, or if they went the private route, that they could still wait for six months and it could cost up to €2,500.
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Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, he said that they were prepared to go private, but were even finding that difficult after approaching a number of dentists locally.
The issue with Tiernan's teeth began last October, and since then he has been in a lot of pain and has had to miss school. His father said that he loved school, and that missing days on and off had meant he was beginning to regress.
Tiernan was given antibiotics and pain medication, which Mr Murphy said were helping, but it was not always possible to get Tiernan to take medicine or to keep it down.
"It has been a fight the whole time. He hasn't been sleeping with the pain as we can only get so much pain medication into him. It has been difficult to see him like that.
"Before this he was a happy little child, full of life and he was a character. He can't afford to miss any more school," Mr Murphy said.
He said that he and his partner Averil had to take time off work to care for Tiernan, but feel they can breath again now that he has been given an appointment.
"We nearly fell down when we heard he had an appointment at the dentistry department of Cork University Hospital. Thanks be to God he's getting look after," Mr Murphy said.
He said that although the family are looking forward to the next part of the process, they never thought they would have to go public with their story.
He said they wanted to raise awareness, not just for their own family, but to help in some way to make sure that there was a system in place for other children too.
Mr Murphy said that they had to get out of their "comfort zone", but hoped that other families would now not have to go through this to get care for their child.
