It was great to see dentists and team members working in the HSE meet in person again for the first time in three years. Morale and burnout are real issues for our members right now but there was little doubt that everyone who attended said it was so important to meet colleagues, share experiences and sound advice in this time of great stress within the service.

• Some parts of the country are facing backlogs of almost 10 years in relation to HSE School Dental Screening Service. • Children who should be receiving three check-ups in primary school not being seen until fourth year of secondary school. • General Anaesthetic waiting lists also running up to 2 years in some parts of the country. • Number of public-only dentists has dropped by almost a quarter (23%), from 330 in 2006 to 254 in 2022. • HSE need to hire 76 dentists immediately to bring the service back to where it was 15 years ago, says Irish Dental Association.

The Irish Dental Association says it is disappointed by the lack of specifics in Budget 2023 regarding measures to improve access to dental care.

Serious investment from Budget 2023 needed to avoid collapse of public dentistry, says Irish Dental Association

The first in our series of regional meetings for members take place in Cork (Tuesday) and Limerick (Wednesday) this week.

As people struggle with cost-of-living pressures, access to dental care will only worsen without significant reform, warns Irish Dental Association in its submission to Government in advance of Budget 2023.

Includes information on reform of the Med 2 tax relief scheme, DTSS (medical card) inspections, Dental Council registration of refugee dentists, and a report on opposition TDs criticising the delay in talks on a new medical card scheme.

“We need the Government to intervene in the medical card scheme, public dentist recruitment and the training of dental graduates immediately before we reach crisis levels.” – Dr Caroline Robins

Last week’s increase in fees and expansion of treatments under the DTSS (medical card scheme) will do little to address the fundamental issues that have forced dentists to withdraw from the scheme en masse, says Dr Will Rymer, chair of the Association’s General Practitioner Committee.

Independently commissioned research paper by Professor of Health Economics at Queens University Belfast, Professor Ciaran O’Neill, says a ‘credit or voucher’ scheme would “remove perversities in the current system and help rebuild relations between the public, providers, and Government.”