Richard O'Donoghue: 11,000 on Dental Waiting Lists
Richard O'Donoghue addresses mounting dental waiting lists, saying 11,000 people are on the list and 8,000 have waited more than two years. He argues the government has failed to act, leaving children and adults without basic dental care and calls for building teams to retain dentists.
Richard O'Donoghue sets out the scale: 11,000 on waiting lists, most of them children, with 8,000 waiting more than two years to see a dentist. He describes the situation as "absolutely disgusting" and highlights the impact on primary school children who should receive routine dental checks.
O'Donoghue urges a practical solution: build a team, retain the next generation of dentists, train them, and place them in local practices with regular hours. He says current long hours and unstable practices push young dentists abroad or into better-paid private work.
He links the dental collapse to wider problems in local healthcare: doctor surgeries and small practices have struggled as staff retire and are not replaced. O'Donoghue warns this repeated neglect has left communities without access to essential services.
Speaking from the floor, O'Donoghue challenges ministers directly: promises have been made for years but children and adults continue to suffer. He contrasts ministers' ability to go private with the reality for many families who cannot afford private care.
Warning on waiting lists
Richard O'Donoghue sets out the scale: 11,000 on waiting lists, most of them children, with 8,000 waiting more than two years to see a dentist. He describes the situation as "absolutely disgusting" and highlights the impact on primary school children who should receive routine dental checks.
How to fix it
O'Donoghue urges a practical solution: build a team, retain the next generation of dentists, train them, and place them in local practices with regular hours. He says current long hours and unstable practices push young dentists abroad or into better-paid private work.
Pattern across services
He links the dental collapse to wider problems in local healthcare: doctor surgeries and small practices have struggled as staff retire and are not replaced. O'Donoghue warns this repeated neglect has left communities without access to essential services.
Political accountability
Speaking from the floor, O'Donoghue challenges ministers directly: promises have been made for years but children and adults continue to suffer. He contrasts ministers' ability to go private with the reality for many families who cannot afford private care.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Other speeches
Tego samego dnia All speeches from this day →
Grace Boland
Grace Boland: Demand for DAA to Act as a Good Neighbour
Tom Clonan
Tom Clonan: Remove Triple Lock - peacekeeping will end
Barry Ward
Barry Ward: Warns lifting Dublin Airport cap risks climate targets
Brian Stanley
Brian Stanley: Ireland's Public Dental System Is Failing
Roderic O'Gorman
Roderic O'Gorman: Stop wasting Ireland's renewable power
Sharon Keogan
Sharon Keogan: Supports Terrorism Bill but Warns on 'Kneecap' Clause
Transcript
Where have you gone wrong? Seven years ago I was here and this has been raised, so where have you gone wrong and why haven't you learned and why haven't you listened? 11,000 waiting on waiting lists, most of them are children, 8,000 are waiting more than two years waiting for to see a dentist and it goes back to say where have you gone wrong and all the colleagues here have all the very same things that it's absolutely disgusting and a disgrace that a person cannot get to see a dentist where a child that's in primary school is supposed to have at least three visits to a dentist before they leave primary school and they don't get to see him at all. So how do we fix it? Very simple as what we said to you a couple of years ago, how do you fix it? You build a team. The next generation coming in you try and retain them in the country, you train them, you get them into a practice where they have regular hours. What has happened is there's so many people waiting for the service, the dentist surgeries are trying to stay open to try and keep going, people are working longer hours and then the dentists that are coming into that practice don't want to stay there because the hours are too long and they can get better hours in other areas or else they leave the country. So what we have to do is we have to build a team and make sure that that team can be encouraged to stay here, encouraged in a practice, even local practices, that they can work in to help people. The same thing happened with our South Docks, our Shannon Docks, our doctor surgeries, the same thing has been happening all the time and you've ignored it. The small practices cannot keep going and then you'll see people like the doctors retiring and nobody taking back on the services. The same thing has happened now in the dentistry and you still haven't listened. Like seven years I'm here now listening to this and it's the same thing over and over again and you're promising it'll be started this year, it'll be promised next year, the year after and each time it goes on there is children and adults suffering. I guarantee you if it was your self minister and you had an issue with your teeth you wouldn't wait because you'd go private. Why? Because you're in a financial situation that you can do that. There's a lot of people in this country that are not in that position and they're watching their children suffer because the government here didn't listen to try and build a team to make sure that we'll have a dentistry in to the future.