The crisis in public dentistry has continued to deepen under this government, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice.<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice made his comments after representatives from the Irish Dental Association (IDA), Department of Health and the HSE appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee today.<\/p>\n
He said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2019, the National Oral Health Policy, \u2018Smile agus Sl\u00e1inte\u2019, was published, with an overarching aim of moving away from an outdated curative dental care model to one of preventative care and health promotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut almost seven years on from its publication, we are still waiting on an implementation plan. The best we could get at today\u2019s committee hearing is that it will be published this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I questioned the Department of Health and HSE on the delay in publishing an implementation plan, they used Covid as an excuse \u2013 despite the fact that the original plan was published in April 2019. The real reason, of course, is that oral health has not been a priority for successive ministers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Simon Harris, the then-Minister for Health, was serious about advancing a new oral healthcare policy, he would have published an implementation plan alongside the 2019 policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the seven years since, there has been no real improvement in public dentistry services. If anything, the situation has deteriorated. The medical card scheme is haemorrhaging dentists with the numbers participating in it having halved in the last decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also know that too many children are leaving primary school without ever having received a dental screening. In 2023, fewer than 104,000 children were screened out of an eligible cohort of 200,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister\u2019s only solution to this crisis seems to be outsourcing children\u2019s dental services to private dentists. This privatisation of services would represent another deeply regressive response to public capacity deficits.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven leaving aside the long-term implications of eroding public dental services, private dentists neither have the capacity nor the willingness to partake in a new outsourcing scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, a recent IDA survey found that 90 per cent of private general dental practitioners would not partake in a new scheme to treat children in private clinics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also unacceptable that dentists are still operating under legislation that is over 40 years old \u2013 the 1985 Act is a relic of the past. The Dental Council of Ireland have been calling for a new Act since 2008, but we are still waiting.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic dental services have been outdated and impoverished for far too long. The Minister for Health must finally show some ambition and real political will to address these longstanding issues in public dentistry. The buck stops with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 14, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The crisis in public dentistry has continued to deepen under this government, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice. Deputy Rice made his comments after representatives from the Irish Dental Association (IDA), Department of Health and the HSE appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee today. He said: \u201cIn 2019, the National Oral Health Policy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[798,11,642,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dental-services","category-health","category-padraig-rice","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n