There are challenges in the provision of dental services, including for children, and patients are waiting longer than they should have to, to access care. Additional investment in recent years has sought to protect access to the current model of service while also supporting fundamental service reform through implementation of the National Oral Health Policy.
€17m in one-off funding was invested between 2022 and 2024 to support access to children’s orthodontic treatment. This funding has seen the creation of a new initiative supporting access to jaw surgery for orthodontic patients and the transfer of over 5000 patients into private, community-based orthodontic treatment. A further €2.85m was invested in 2025 to continue these successful orthodontic treatment waiting list initiatives and enable children to access orthodontic care.
In 2025, an additional €2m in funding supported continued policy implementation and the hiring of 15 HSE oral healthcare staff to improve access to existing community services in our HSE dental and orthodontic clinics. This is increasing to €4m this year.
I acknowledge that the current system, which was developed in the 1990s in response to the identified oral healthcare needs at that time, needs to be modernised and aligned with current needs. I am committed to reforming oral healthcare services through the implementation of the National Oral Health Policy, Smile agus Sláinte. The National Oral Health Policy sets out the vision for oral healthcare services in Ireland and has two key goals:
• to provide the supports to enable every individual to achieve their personal best oral health.
• to reduce oral health inequalities across the population, by enabling vulnerable groups to access oral healthcare and improve their oral health.
Reform of our services is vital to enable people of all ages to access modern, prevention-focused care. A plan for the first phase of implementation is currently at an advanced stage, for publication in the coming months and contains reform of primary care services for adults and children as priorities.
The development and roll-out of these packages will take place incrementally over the next number of years. The detail of the packages and the resource requirements will be agreed as part of the policy implementation process.
The Policy contains a range of strategic workforce planning actions to increase national workforce capacity, in support of improving patient access to care. The Department of Health has finalised a workforce census for oral healthcare and is progressing work on a scoping project for a mid-level professional grade for oral healthcare, as an additional measure to increase capacity in the workforce. A programme to encourage the redistribution of oral healthcare professionals to underserved areas is also a key action in the Policy. For oral healthcare professionals working in isolated rural areas far away from centres of education, it will be essential to provide support in the form of mentoring programmes as well as by introducing long-distance and accessible continuing development education programmes.
