• New survey finds 90% of private dentists would not sign up for new Government scheme for children’s dental care
• Last year, only half of eligible 2^nd, 4^th and 6^th class students received dental screenings with this figure dropping to just one third in some parts of the country
• Irish Dental Association HSE Dental Surgeons Seminar taking place in Kilkenny

As the IDA HSE Dental Surgeons Seminar begins today in Kilkenny, the Irish Dental Association (IDA) is voicing concerns over government proposals to divert children’s dental care to private clinics.

The Association contends that general dental practices currently lack the necessary treatment capacity and appetite to accommodate this proposed transfer of patients

In a new IDA survey, 90% of private general dental practitioners have stated that they would not partake in a proposed new scheme to treat children in private clinics.

The dental sector has seen acute shortages of staff in private practices across the country, leading to constrained capacity and shortages in overall levels of care. This presents a serious impediment to enacting necessary oral health reforms.

The IDA welcomes the broad recognition by the state that there is a crisis in oral healthcare for children, especially those who rely on a strong public dental service, which targets all patients through a school-based appointments system.

The Association is willing to discuss alternative approaches with the Department of Health, with a commitment to greater funding by the state needed in order to safeguard the sustainable delivery of oral healthcare to a broader section of the population.

Accessibility of care

There is a growing gap between those who can afford to access dentistry by private means and those who are left at the mercy of a public system which is underfunded and not fit for purpose – those most often being children and vulnerable people.

In order to close this gap, the Association is also calling for the recruitment of 100 dentists over the next two years to bolster publicly funded dental services.

It is clear that the proposal to invite private dentists to provide dental care for children is not an effective policy pathway for increasing access of care to children across Ireland.

This call comes as recent data shows that only half of eligible 2^nd, 4^th and 6^th students were screened nationally in 2024 as part of the Government’s school screening programme. Once more, over 100,000 children were denied vital dental appointments last year due to staff cutbacks in the HSE.

This collapse in the school dental service comes at a time when adults have seen an €800 million cut in state spending on dental care, as recently identified by the Irish Dental Association, which directly impacted the delivery of care to Medical Card and PRSI patients between 2009 and 2023.

The decline in the number of HSE dentists per capita is impacting on the delivery of care to other vulnerable sections of society, including those with special care needs and patients waiting on essential public orthodontic treatment.

Irish Dental Association CEO Fintan Hourihan stated, “It is clear that the widely held views of the dental sector need to be accounted for in implementing any policy changes which strongly impact our membership. We were disappointed to find that Budget 2026 did not address any of the thoughtful proposals we set out in our Pre-budget Submission.

“We would like to once again emphasise today that we are very open to constructive collaboration with the Minister for Health and the Department of Health in addressing the very real deficits in dental care for children across this country.”

Accordingly, the Association is also calling for changes to the Critical Skills List, advocating for the addition of dentists and dental nurses, in order to remedy staffing shortages across the sector.