The Government has been urged to place a cap on the number of overseas students enrolled in university dental programmes to ease competition among Irish students for places on these high-demand courses.
Almost half of places on dental courses are set aside for students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who pay more than €45,000 per year to train in either University College Cork or Trinity College Dublin.
Universities rely on significant numbers of international students across many other high points courses such as medicine, veterinary science and others.
However, the limited number of places on dental courses for Irish students has pushed CAO points upwards. This year, Trinity was forced to use a lottery to select candidates who achieved 625 points, the maximum possible in the Leaving Cert.
The Irish Dental Association, which represents about 1,800 dentists, has called for a cap of non-EEA students of 20 per cent next year and decreasing to 10 per cent over the next three years.
It said the fact that approximately half of the total dental student intake is made up of students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) means there are limited places for dental students coming from Ireland or EEA countries.
The association said these non-EEA graduates usually return to their country of origin to practice dentistry rather than remaining in Ireland.
In addition, it said the high proportion of overseas students is having an impact on workforce planning as the vast majority of international students do not remain in Ireland post-graduation.
Latest figures show there were 50 dental graduates from UCC’s dental school in 2022, of which 60 per cent were non-EEA. There were 40 dental graduates from TCD’s dental school in 2022, of which almost 40 per cent were non-EEA.
Dr Rory Boyd, president of the Irish Dental Association, said this model of producing dental graduates was “unsustainable” and Irish patients were suffering the consequences of the shortage of dentists.
“Irish students who achieve the incredible feat of 625 points in their Leaving Certificate are having to face a lottery for acceptance into the dentistry courses in TCD and may well face the same in UCC before long.
“Not only is it extremely disappointing for the Irish students who achieve maximum points and cannot select their first choice of dentistry, it is an unacceptable loss of potential dentists that are badly needed here in Ireland.”
He said the higher education funding model for dentistry was “broken” and the Government had not taken sufficient measures to ensure sufficient dental graduates who will practise in Ireland are trained and retained.
“We need to see a seismic change in the funding of our dental schools and a cap of 20 per cent next year, decreasing to 10 per cent over the next three years, to re-emphasise the retention of Irish and EEA graduates into the Irish dental workforce,” Dr Boyd added.
The association said dental practices cannot cope with the number of patients seeking treatment, which is leading to long waiting lists.
The Department of Further and Higher Education has pointed out that funding for higher education has been climbing over recent years with an additional €106 million in core funding provided over the last two budgets.
The Department of Health has said there are discussions to boost the output of dental graduates by 10 to 20 per cent. It also wants to move towards a 75:25 ratio of domestic vs non-EU students in dental schools.
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