It is an abdication of duty for the government to ignore glaring holes in dental care legislation which put the public in danger, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson Pádraig Rice.
Deputy Rice said:
“Today’s news that the Dental Council, the statutory regulatory body for dentistry in Ireland, was unable to act in 80% of credible allegations about unregistered dentists in the past three years comes as no surprise.
“The Dental Council has been calling for a new Act since 2008 to overcome the limitations in legislation governing the sector, but successive governments have turned a blind eye – despite the fact that the body cannot even inspect dentists’ registrations.
“Year after year, we see the same reports of unacceptable risks to patients undergoing dental procedures – RTÉ Investigates uncovered serious patient safety concerns in 2023, but the ensuing outcry was ignored by the government of that time.
“It is unacceptable that dentists are still operating under legislation that is over 40 years old, which does not provide the Dental Council with appropriate enforcement powers to take action against people practicing dentistry while unregistered, or even enter and inspect a dental practice.
“In 2019, the National Oral Health Policy, ‘Smile agus Sláinte’, was published, with an overarching aim of moving away from an outdated curative dental care model to one of preventative care and health promotion.
“But almost seven years on from its publication, we are still waiting on an implementation plan. At last month’s Health Committee meeting on dental services, the Department of Health still couldn’t provide a specific timeframe, other than to say it will be published this year.
“The responsibility lies with the Minister for Health to modernise dental care legislation – the Minister must act swiftly to pass a bill to sufficiently empower the Dental Council to protect the public from unregistered dentists and remedy standards and trust in public dentistry.”
February 23rd, 2026