Sir, – Recent interviews with Irish Dental Association chief executive Fintan Hourihan and specialist paediatric dentist Dr Abigail Moore exposed the serious deficit in dental services in Ireland.

As a dentist in a general practice where the majority of patients hold medical cards, I can concur with the sentiments expressed.

For too long dentistry has remained the Cinderella of Irish healthcare. Over the last few years, resources for dental services have been decimated following the financial crash in 2009 and the Covid pandemic of 2020-2022.

Shamefully, these vital care services have not been reinstated to anywhere near a functional level.

In response to the unprecedented volume of patients attending our practice in severe dental pain and with advanced oral swelling we have established a dedicated emergency service (akin to a casualty department) to care for these patients.

Regrettably, there are very limited options for medical card holders to access treatment elsewhere, and increasingly patients are travelling long distances to source urgent dental services.

A significant proportion of patients presenting are unsuitable for treatment in a primary care setting due to complex medical and surgical requirements. Despite this, referral pathways are not adequately provided by the HSE, with serious consequence for patients.

Dental disease is largely avoidable with appropriate education and early preventative treatment. The failure of Ireland to provide basic preventative dental care ensures that patients will continue to present with severe pain and advanced dental disease at great personal and national cost.

This damaging care paradox is greatly magnified in a country where emergency care for medical card holders is almost impossible to access, creating major medical risk for our most vulnerable patients.

The HSE is currently reliant on a rapidly dwindling panel of dentists in general practice to provide dental treatment for adult medical card holders. If the exodus of dentists from the service continues at its current trajectory it will soon be impossible for the vast majority of eligible patients to access any State dental care.

Decisive action is required immediately if we are to end the appalling scenario of young children and vulnerable adults suffering intolerable pain and chronic, severe, untreated dental sepsis. – Yours, etc,

DARAGH FAGAN,

Malahide Road,

Dublin 3.

Nobel Peace Prize

Sir, – I wonder if the Nobel Peace Prize committee might now be having strong second thoughts about the wisdom of choosing Maria Corina Machado as the 2025 Peace Prize laureate?

Although obviously a courageous woman in her efforts to return Venezuela to democracy, she has badly blotted her copy book by passing on her Nobel Peace medal to US president Donald Trump.

Even before this ludicrous action she had not earned her place among former illustrious peace laureates such as John Hume, David Trimble and Nelson Mandela.

Also, as the political situation in Venezuela is still in suspension, it seemed a foolish decision by the Nobel Peace committee to prematurely have awarded her the prize.

Has the committee damaged its reputation further as in former times, when most infamously it awarded the peace prize to Henry Kissinger, considered by many to have been a war criminal for his deadly policies in Vietnam and Cambodia?

Much as we might have welcomed the election of Barack Obama as president of the US back in 2008, his peace award was also premature and wholly undeserved.

The Nobel Peace Prize is a hugely respected prestigious award, so perhaps the committee needs to more carefully choose appropriate recipients going forward.

Non-partisan brave peace workers and NGOs – for their long term and relentless unsung humanitarian work in dire and dangerous situations in the Middle East– spring to mind more readily as worthy peace prize recipients, – Yours, etc,

CYNTHIA CARROLL,

Newport

Co Tipperary.

Sir, – As our president Donald Trump destroys the norms of civic engagement at home and international diplomacy abroad I feel compelled to write. There is little support here in the US for the president’s adventurism. We supposedly left this behind us with the establishment of the United Nations.

Even Republicans are beginning to show a stiffer spine in opposing his foolish and dangerous plans for Greenland.

I, and many millions of my fellow citizens, were delighted to see Denmark taking a more aggressive attitude to defending Greenland in the face of the president’s aggression.

I believe that other member countries in Nato ought to do the same and, as well as troops, move weapons to Greenland.

Let me stress that I’m a pacifist both by inclination and for practical reasons. I believe that ultimately all disputes must be sorted out rationally, by the wonderful art of politics, of which our president is clueless.

However, I believe too that bullies back down when confronted. A journalist came up with Taco (Trump always chickens out) to describe him.

We saw this time and time again with his on-again, off-again tariffs when the pushback from other countries, particularly China, and our own industry and banking leaders proved too much for him.

If European leaders stand firmly with Denmark and show their commitment to letting Greenland decide its own fate by a huge show of force, history tells us that once again we’ll see Taco in action – Yours, etc,

JOHN COTTER,

Melrose,

Massachusetts,

USA.

Neutrality and a stronger Europe

Sir, – Fintan Lane rightly identifies the dangers posed by imperialist states, specifically Russia and the US under current leadership (Letters, Friday, January 16th).

He is wrong, however, in decrying European efforts to counter actual and potential threats from either source. His argument that Ireland should be using its neutrality to “argue for an end to militarism “can only be regarded as quixotic in the current geopolitical circumstances.

A militarily weak Europe, including Ireland, is threatened from the east and in the north Atlantic by Russia, and is no longer actively supported by the former “defender of the Free World” to the west.

A US-led Nato ensured peace and security in Europe for half a century after the second World War. Ireland benefited from this happy situation without having to pay any heed to defence. In the aftermath of the Cold War European states cut back on their military in the face of the demise of the USSR. This situation has now changed.

Today Europe is belatedly realising that she can no longer rely on the US, and must provide for her own security, in an environment where the leader of one superpower can claim the right to take action in the international domain, subject only to his own sense of morality.

His ideological adviser has stated that power is the only determinant of international relations.

Meanwhile, Russia continues its war on Ukraine and the UN, while dominated as it is by these states and China, can only stand by, failing even to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s actions in Gaza.

To accuse those in Europe who argue for an appropriate defence architecture of being militarists is as inaccurate as it is wrong.

An Irish appeal for Europe to desist from increasing her defence capacity would be both wrong from a policy perspective and correctly ignored, and remembered, by our European trading partners.

As your correspondent is presumably aware, Ireland is, by virtue of Article 29.4.9 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, prohibited from joining a European common defence treaty.

We are, however, obliged to assist a fellow member under attack, but have the freedom to decide the nature of such assistance.

Given our dependence on trade and foreign investment, as well as our membership of the EU, it is, I believe, in our national interest that we provide such assistance, whether military or otherwise, to the maximum extent possible.

The days of relying on international goodwill and the UN are over for the moment.

As someone who took great pride in service with UN forces I regret the sorry state into which the organisation has been forced, but accept that we must adapt to the new circumstances.

Irish policy going forward should be to support and contribute to efforts to maximise European strategic autonomy while building a defence capacity capable of reassuring our partners that we do not constitute a weak link in European defence and security structures.

Ultimate authority for deploying Irish military resources in any scenario should remain in Ireland and not in Brussels or New York.

This will require increased defence expenditure and abolishing the triple lock, while retaining Article 29.4.9. Appealing for, or preaching about, an end to imperial aggression while condemning the pragmatic and necessary response of those who justifiably feel threatened is no substitute for policy. – Yours etc,

MICHAEL O’DWYER,

Clogheen,

Cork.

Solo in the cinema

Sir, – Emer McLysaght’s great overview of the joys of going solo to the cinema didn’t cover an additional benefit I have encountered (“Some films leave me with memories lasting for years. Hamnet will be one of those,” January 15th).

In the early afternoons that I have attended our excellent local Ballincollig cinema sometimes I have been the only patron present for the movie screening.

This has been the closest I have come to feeling like a high net worth individual who is in possession of their own private cinema. – Yours, etc,

KEITH PHELAN,

Ovens,

Cork.

No céad míle fáilte in Ireland

Sir, – Céad míle fáilte, (a hundred thousand welcomes), well we are certainly not that anymore. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan is making sure of that with his family reunfication laws, as highlighted by Justine McCarthy (“Ireland basks in Hamnet’s success and celebrates Jessie Buckley. It should feel shame,” January 16th).

I find it difficult to watch the news these days with the daily horrors etched out, and now, I feel hopeless when I read Mr O’Callaghan’s heartless attitude to separated families.

Five years is a long time in a child’s life, if they see it, that is. There is no justification whatsoever for depriving others of such a gift.

This country is becoming unrecognisable day by day with our lack of values and standards.

Are we even Irish anymore? Certainly doesn’t feel or look like it. – Yours, etc,

SUSAN WHATELY,

Howth,

Co Dublin,

Climate change implications

Sir, – Last week, shocking warnings were given about the severe challenges that face Ireland in just four years from the impact of climate change.

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Monitoring Service reported that rising average temperatures will reach a perilous threshold by 2030. They predict that temperatures will continue to rise incrementally year after year unless something drastic changes.

Prof Peter Thorne, director of the Icarus Climate Research Institute at Maynooth University, has also said there is ever-increasing evidence that Ireland’s climate is changing in pretty profound ways.

In the face of anticipated heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, super strength storms and an extreme vulnerability to sea level rises and coastal erosion, one would think that urgent action would be being taken by the Government but the opposite seems to be the case. It is business as usual, only more so.

Firstly, it has emerged that the Government’s Climate Action Plan will again be delayed this year.

We have also heard that the moratorium on building data centres has been lifted, despite the fact the sustainable energy infrastructure required is not yet in place.

Nor is it clear why priority should be given to providing energy to data centres rather than to meet the needs of the general population.

Dublin Airport has also had its busiest year and it is likely the cap on numbers will be lifted, despite the high carbon emissions involved.

We are told air connectivity is vital to an island economy, but can all flying be justified when it is clearly harmful? Although Ireland is unable to cater for the current rapid increase in population, we are continuing to actively seek inward investment which will add further pressure.

At the same time, the mitigating effects of nature are being lost with extensive infill building resulting in major losses of trees and vegetation. Much of the building is taking place very close to the rising seas of the east coast.

Prof Thorne has said Ireland is pointed fundamentally in the wrong way and that there is a complete lack of political will to enact solutions at the speed and scale required.

Marie Connolly, chair of Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council, said the implications of the data must be made real for the public and policymakers.

The indications to date are that the mighty dollar currently carries more sway among the political and corporate classes, but current windfalls will be a fraction of the cost of inaction on climate change. – Yours, etc,

CAROL SCOTT,

Shankill,

Dublin 18.

Bans and the X debate

Sir, – Séamus McKenna in his letter (January 16th) advocates against taking a “sledgehammer” type approach in the banning of X.

Context is always important. Free speech has long preceded X, formerly Twitter, free speech exists during X, and free speech exists entirely independently of X.

The pragmatic question is whether the undoubted adverse costs of an unmoderated X outweigh the benefits of an online forum for public discourse.

Owing to evolving algorithmic design, it is highly questionable whether X is, in reality, a platform for balanced free speech as distinct from a platform that predominantly advocates for a particular ideological position.

It may well be the case, considered pragmatically, that the detrimental costs of X far outweigh any questionable benefits. – Yours, etc,

ANTHONY LAYNG,

Ringsend Road,

Dublin 4

Sir, – I am writing to ask politicians to stop using the phrase “child pornography” when discussing AI and Grok. There is no such thing as “child pornography” – there are only “child sex abuse images”.

Ideally, the Government would have closed Grok until they removed the nudification feature.

But failing that, maybe the correct language can be used when discussing this very important issue. – Yours, etc,

GRACE RYAN,

Glenageary,

Dublin.