It is heartening to note that there are 3,930 dentists on the Dental Council register as of 18th of May 2026, which is an increase of 107 since April 2025. This reflects ongoing upward trends regarding registered dentists in the State, and compares favourably with the numbers in April 2019, when Smile agus Sláinte was published–3,100, an increase of over 26%.
Data from the Dental Council indicates that the European Union (EU) is a source of dentistry workforce stock for Ireland. Out of the 3,930 registrants on the register of dentists almost 40% are EU/UK nationals. These dentists do and will continue to contribute to our workforce, and it reflects positively on Ireland as a country of destination for qualified dentists to register in and work. In total, today on the Council's register, 2122 registrants are Irish, 1521 registrants are EU/UK, and 287 registrants are non-EU.
In terms of the number of dental graduates in Ireland, the national capacity for dentistry courses until recently was only approximately 60 Irish/EU places annually out of a total of approximately 100. This Government has worked to increase the number of Irish/EU dental undergraduate places, and there are now around 80 Irish/EU places in academic year 2025/26.
My Department intends to increase the number of dental training places by engaging with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) and the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
As part of this engagement, I understand that officials from DFHERIS are in discussions with University College Cork regarding its proposal to establish a community-based dental outreach centre in North Cork, and to advance this important project.
The proposal, which includes a request for capital investment from my Department, will support an increase in undergraduate dental training capacity and provide students with earlier clinical exposure in primary care settings.
My Department has also received a proposal to increase to the number dental training places at the Dublin Dental University Hospital at Trinity College Dublin. This will require further discussion to progress this proposal with the aim to maximise both Irish and EU places to enhance workforce capacity in Ireland, as well as increased service provision. This engagement is ongoing, and my officials recently met with DDUH to discuss further.
Both these initiatives complement the commencement of the new Bachelor of Dental Surgery Programme at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RSCI) in September 2025. The RCSI has informed us that its intake is 30 students, 21 of whom are Irish/EU students. The RCSI has secured an agreement with the HEA to expand its intake to 35 Irish/EU student places by 2027.
These dentists provide important oral healthcare services to the public through our public dental system in the Health Service Executive (HSE). There are currently 234 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) dentists in the HSE's Oral Healthcare Service, across the various grades of dentist.
Funding of €4m has been invested by the Government to support the addition of 15 HSE dental staff across dentists and dental nurses to deliver oral healthcare in the community. Of these 15 posts, 8 have been on boarded/recruitment complete, 6 have campaigns underway, and 1 post has been approved.
Further, the HSE has sanctioned filling 34.7 existing WTE vacancies in the Oral Healthcare Service and have advised that the recruitment has commenced. My Department is supportive of the recruitment of 49.7 WTE identified through these two processes, which will improve the staffing levels currently available to provide service.
In terms of undertaking an analysis on the capacity of the Irish healthcare system, we are planning for the future by undertaking work an oral healthcare workforce plan. This plan is currently being developed and aligns with one of the recommendations in the recent report from the Joint Committee on Health on Dental Services in the Healthcare System. The recommendation in the report includes developing a strategic workforce plan which my Department is currently advancing.
This oral healthcare workforce plan will complement the work already undertaken by my officials and the Dental Council to reform the current Register for Dentists. In order to support this, a workforce skills assessment census framework for the oral healthcare sector has been designed. The workforce census is intended to gather information including the number of registered oral healthcare professionals who are practicing in their registered profession, the location of their practice, services they provide, and the skills they have.
The information collected from the workforce census will enable the collation of important data to better inform workforce planning for the oral healthcare sector by providing vital insights into the sector's workforce and by identifying the skills that oral healthcare professionals need to provide oral healthcare services to the public.
My Department remains committed to working with DFHERIS to increase dental training capacity in a sustainable and strategic manner. By enhancing our future workforce, we are taking steps to ensure that the National Oral Health Policy is implemented.
