Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

It is fitting the Minister of State is here because her constituency is located between Senator Boyle's and mine, between Donegal and Roscommon, so we know she will not let us down.

A couple of weeks ago I tabled a Commencement matter on the number of dentists accepting medical cards and the Minister's response was that we needed to look at having more public dentists on the scheme. When this issue we discussing today was raised with me and I realised that Senator Boyle had the same issue, we thought it was very important that we raised this in the context of education to see if it can be addressed. As Senator Boyle has mentioned, there are only two places delivering courses at the moment - Trinity College in Dublin and UCC in Cork - with a total of 20 places available each year. That number has not increased in more than two decades despite a growing population and oral health needs. Once qualified, dental hygienists must register with the Dental Council of Ireland, yet there are only 600 registered hygienists, and we do not even know how many are actively working. That is the reality. We face a dental workforce crisis, not just with dentists but also with hygienists. The Irish Dental Association has repeatedly sought for more support on this.

We are raising this issue with the Minister of State to see if we can collectively come up with a solution in order that we are not exporting our students to other jurisdictions to get qualified and then having to come up with elaborate schemes to attract them back to work here. As Senator Boyle has said, we know of students who have applied two or three times and have been rejected. I also know that more than 200 people applied for the eight places that are available in Trinity College Dublin, so there is significant demand. We already know, through our system, that there is significant demand. We believe dental hygienists will alleviate the pressure on dentists and open up more opportunities for them. We call on the Department to address this matter.