Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for the amendment. Essentially, while I cannot accept the amendment to this Bill, I support the intent of it. As the Senator said, there is not a statutory requirement for continuing professional development for dentists. Many dentists obviously engage in continuing professional development and the Irish Dental Association provides much of that. It is legislated for doctors and other healthcare professionals but not for dentists. It is governed under a 1985 Act, which needs to be updated. It is something I would certainly like to see being done.

I cannot accept the amendment now for several reasons, one of which is that there is a time sensitivity in this. We need to make sure UK medical degree holders and medical graduates can come here for their internships, and these internships commence in July. Therefore, there has been a real urgency with this Bill. I thank the Seanad for its support in scheduling this Bill to get it through Committee and Remaining Stages today. There is a new test at EU level, as prescribed by the EU proportionality test directive, which requires that any time we regulate like this, we must do an amount of work, including a stakeholder engagement, to justify why we are regulating. It is a good idea. The essential aim is to ensure that governments do not overregulate. However, that makes the process longer. The test would have to be carried out prior to the restrictions being enacted. It is not possible to do that because it would delay eligibility for UK medical graduates. Other work would be required in respect of the amendment tabled by the Senator, as supported by the Irish Dental Association. There are various changes we would want to make to it. In essence, there is a real timing issue. I support the objective of the amendment. It is something we need to do and will do as part of an upgrading of the 1985 Act generally. That legislation is out of date and there are various parts of it we want to upgrade. Continuing professional development is one such aspect.