Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

The issue I wish to raise, which I am aware was raised in the House recently, relates to the number of places for dental students in Ireland. In UCC in 2023, 61 students qualified as dentists. Of these, 25 were European, including Irish, and 36 were from outside Europe.

In Trinity the same year, 41 students qualified. Of these, 25 were Irish or European and 21 were non-Europeans. We have a huge shortage of dentists who are prepared to provide a service for public patients, yet they are providing treatment if you attend as a private patient. The number providing public care has dropped from 1,450 to 810. The latter is the most recent figure available and relates to 2023. The number has, in fact, fallen below 810 at this stage. The number receiving treatment who are public patients dropped from 393,000 in 2012 to 283,000 in 2023. That is a decrease of 110,000.

There is also a substantial problem with regard to people who have intellectual disabilities in that access to care is not there for them. I had one case recently where the family involved had to pay out for private care that cost more than €10,000. Care is available but there is a substantial waiting time of anything up to 12 months, even for the most urgent case. This issue needs to be dealt with, first in the context of engagement with the Irish Dental Association and trying to get more dentists to take on public patients or people with medical cards. The second issue is training. We have got to dramatically increase the number of students who qualify each year who are more likely to stay in Ireland.

I fully accept that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland intends to start a new training programme, which will involve at least 20 Irish students. I do not think that is sufficient for the demand that exists. For instance, within a mile radius of my constituency office in Cork, two dental practices have closed because the owners could not get anyone to take them over. They wanted to retire. We will have a huge number of dentists retiring out over the next five years. We have got to deal with this challenge now. The other figure given to me by the Irish Dental Association is that 75% of dental practices that wanted to recruit someone in 2023 failed to fill the vacancies that were there. We have got to deal with this as a matter of urgency.

It is not a case that universities have to take on extra staff. It is a case of reducing the number of non-European students taken in and increasing the number of Irish students taken in. This will really help. Even if we do that in the morning, we are still five years off having those qualified dentists available. This now needs to be given priority by the Department. It has to be done in the next three or four weeks before the universities make final decisions about admissions of students for 2025. That is why I am raising it a second time in a very short period.

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