Dr. Eamon Croke:

The provision of services is not a matter for the dental council. I accept that there is a cost to regulation but everybody in this room would accept that living in Ireland is expensive. That is an important starting point when we talk about costs.

In terms of costs of regulation, regulation is demanded by the public. The daily experience of the dental council is that the public demand we have highly skilled individuals to carry out the work and in whom members of the public can put their trust.

I do not believe that competitiveness will be served at all by bringing in unskilled people to carry out a job. All that happens in that case is that costs increase because indemnity costs will increase, and Ireland has very high indemnity costs. It goes back to issues such as the foundation training. It is a question of getting the skills level increased from the outset.

In terms of illegal practice on the denturist side, it is important to note that the dental council has put in place a clinical dental technicians register. The scope of practice and entry to it is well set out and it is reasonable. It protects members of the public when they are exposed and attends people who provide the service to them.

It is important for the committee to understand also that there is a training course in the Dublin Dental University Hospital. One can achieve the training levels one wants if one were intent on going from illegal practice to legal practice. That is the history there, and we have been encouraged by those who have taken the decision to go from illegal to legal practice, but there is a moral dilemma in grandfathering somebody who ignores the fact they are acting illegally and then telling them they can get on with it now. With regard to all the Deputy's concerns, that will serve the public very poorly if that were to happen in the future. There is a means by which to go legal, and I would encourage those in illegal practice to do it.