The IDA submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare outlines 8 priorities for the future of the Health Service as follows:

1. A new national oral health strategy must be developed and properly resourced, with a focus on prevention that ensures oral health care is better integrated and given priority in any overall health care strategy. A full-time Chief Dental Officer should be appointed on a permanent basis to lead the development and implementation of a new oral health strategy.
2. The role and expertise of dentists at community / primary care level in the management and prevention of chronic disease must be developed.
3. Any state dental schemes must be properly funded and operated. They must be fit for purpose and have a focus on prevention.
4. There needs to be elimination of the barriers between primary and secondary oral and dental health care.
5. A national model of publicly delivered dental care for children and patients with special care needs is needed and must be adequately resourced and staffed.
6. We recommend implementation of the recommendations as they relate to paediatric dentistry contained in the National Clinical Programme for Paediatrics and Neonatology model of care for paediatric healthcare services in Ireland.
7. There must be a concerted plan to tackle the crisis in Orthodontics.
8. We need to see publication and enactment of a new Dental Act.

Download the full submission here.