Mr. David O'Flynn:

One of the things the Dental Council has done over the last two years, not just in respect of Ukrainian dentists but with regard to anybody who has been granted international protection by Ireland, is open up a specific registration pathway for them. We have had 176 dentists who have been granted international protection by Ireland apply to register with the Dental Council and we have a pathway to allow them to practise. That straddles the pathway European Union graduates would have and that of non-EEA dentists. We have a specific pathway to guide those on to the register.

I do not know when the Deputy's constituent sought to speak to the Dental Council but that pathway has been in place for approximately two years. We put that in place with the full support of the profession. It relies on the profession to provide mentored places for that. The profession has been very supportive of the initiative, as has the Irish Dental Association in promoting it with its members. There has been a good uptake and the response has been good from the refugees who have managed to partake in that process.

On dentists who are not refugees but are from outside the European Union, the pathway to registration is through our exam. In the last couple of years, we have increased the capacity of the exam because we are oversubscribed and we are actively looking at increasing it again. I cannot correlate the number of people who sit the exam with D visas because we do not have that information.