'It's shocking': State must fund schools to deal with lack of graduates, says Cork dentist

A senior Cork member of the Irish Dental Association has said the lack of proper Government funding of dental schools has led to an over-reliance on students from non-European Economic Area (EEA) and a resulting lack of Irish dental graduates.

Dr Mairead Browne, a member of the Irish Dental Association GP committee and a past president of the association’s Cork branch, said the association was seeking a cap of 20% on non-EEA students, coming down to 10% over the next three years.

She said that despite a shortage of dentists in Ireland, only half of all dental student places in the two Irish dental schools, in University College Cork (UCC) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), went to EEA students last year.

“There’s a major issue in Irish dentistry with a lack of graduates, and that’s affecting patient care, patients accessing care, waiting times, and we have a situation now where this year over 50% of graduates were non-EEA graduates.

“It’s having a detrimental effect on dental practices and also it’s meaning that a student can have maximum points and not get a space in a university on their doorstep. It’s shocking that we have such a low number of dental graduates,” she said.

Non-EEA students pay over €45,000 per annum to train in either UCC or TCD, and Dr Browne said that money is used to cross-subsidise Irish dental students due to “years of under-resourcing of Irish dental schools”.

According to the Irish Dental Association non-EEA graduates usually return to their country of origin to practice dentistry rather than practising in Ireland.

The association says high proportion of non-EEA students not only limits the opportunities for Irish and EEA students but also impacts workforce planning, as the vast majority of international students do not remain in Ireland post-graduation.

Over the past academic year, the UCC dental student intake consisted of 53 students, of which 25, or , 47%were non-EEA students, while 16 of TCD’s dental student intake of 48 students, or 35%, were non-EEA students.

According to an Irish Dental Association survey, 63% of Irish dentists say they struggle to recruit associate dentists, while the HSE public dental service has 23% fewer dentists employed than in 2009.

Furthermore, a survey of association this year stated that 63% of dentists struggled to recruit a dentist within the past 12 months. This, in turn, means practices cannot cope with the number of patients seeking treatment, which is leading to long waiting lists and a decline of the patient access.

Dr Rory Boyd, president of the Irish Dental Association said Ireland’s current model of producing dental graduates was unsustainable, and Irish patients were suffering the consequences of the shortage of dentists.