Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)

I thank Deputy Stanley for bringing forward the motion. It presents us with another opportunity to discuss the crisis in dental care. The Social Democrats tabled a similar motion in May of last year. Unfortunately, the challenges facing dental care in Ireland remain and urgent action on the part of the Government is still required. One significant issue relates to the number of dentists within the HSE and the numbers currently being trained to deal with unmet patient need. Patients are being left to sit on waiting lists up to two years for procedures involving general anaesthetic and six years for orthodontics, while the Government is failing to provide adequate funding to increase the number of dentists being trained.

I am sure many of the same numbers from the Irish Dental Association will be mentioned time and again during the debate, but I would just like to point out some salient trends. Half of all eligible children are being denied access to their dental screening appointments due to shortages of dentists within the HSE. This means that 104,000 children are missing out on their scheduled check-ups. The number of HSE dentists has declined by nearly one quarter over the past 20 years. We have seen a 31% reduction in the number of children being seen by HSE dentists in the past five years alone. It is not just children who are being affected by shortages in the number of dentists. One in six of all patients is left waiting more than three months for a routine appointment.

If we are to address these ongoing issues around the number of dentists within the system, we must address the funding and capacity issues relating to the education and training system. The two dental schools in this country are run by Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork. Neither has received significant funding in recent years to either update or expand their facilities or increase the number of trainees they have in order to keep up with patient demand. The dean of the school in Cork has described its current building as "frail" and said that its continued use is "untenable without significant investment". He pointed out that it has a leaky roof and other issues that come with buildings of a certain age. He has highlighted the need to update and even replace much of the dental equipment being used currently within the school.

As in so many areas, this Government is not getting the basics right with dental service provision. There had been plans to expand and relocate the Cork University Dental School and Hospital but these now appear to have been dropped, seemingly due to a lack of funding from Government. The school, which is located on the Cork University Hospital campus was granted planning permission back in 2019 for a five-storey building in Curraheen. The new building was designed and the project went to tender. The Tánaiste visited the site and turned the sod but the development appears to have effectively been shelved.

Continued underinvestment in our dental schools has contributed to the insufficient number of dental graduates coming into the system each year and to a growing disparity between need and number of dentists required to meet that need. I appeal to the Government to address this specific issue that is contributing to our crisis in dental care services and to provide the necessary funding for a new dental school and hospital building in Cork.

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