DONAL St A. ATKINS,
Madam, - I wonder how many of your readers who pay regular PRSI premiums to the Government are aware of being cheated?
As a result of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs failing to negotiate a resolution to a nine-month old dispute with family dentists (arising from a two-and-a-half-year-old claim), these 1.7 million insured workers (including the undersigned) are deprived of dental treatment benefit from a family dentist of their choice.
If a commercial firm forcibly collected premiums and subsequently refused the insured access to the benefit, no doubt both Government and the trade unions would have something to say.
My association's dispute with the Government has nothing to do with the right of those paying insurance premiums to benefit - if not from dental treatment, then from a refund from the Department. - Yours, etc.,
DONAL St A. ATKINS, Secretary General, Irish Dental Association, Richview Office Park, Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 14.