Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 October 2023
7. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the details of any review carried out by his Department with regard to removing dental nurses from the ineligible list of occupations for employment permits; his plans to review same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44204/23]
View answerBaineann mo cheist le haltraí fiaclóireachta agus go háirithe maidir le haon dul chun cinn atá déanta ó thaobh na bpost seo a bhaint ó liosta na bpost neamhcháilithe. My question relates to dental nurses. I ask for the results of any review carried out by the Minister of State's Department with a view to removing dental nurses from the ineligible occupations list, and the plans to review that.
As the Deputy knows, we in the Department are well aware of how important the work permit system is to both businesses and Irish consumers. As the Deputy would have heard in debates earlier this morning, over 40,000 work permits were allocated last year. This year, the number will be around 38,000 for people outside the EEA. With full employment and more people at work than ever before, this obviously has huge benefits but it is also really important for businesses and consumers. In the healthcare sector, we have seen a huge amount of people come over, including over 5,000 nurses from outside the EEA as well as care assistants, doctors and much more.
What we are hearing from business is that it needs more occupations to be added to both the eligible and critical skills lists, making them eligible for permits. In response to this, as the Deputy has already heard, this summer the Department opened a review of the occupations eligible for work permits, in terms of both eligible and critical skills. The review closed in August, and given the demand for permits, we received over 100 submissions. This was over ten times what was received in previous reviews. I can confirm that there was a submission on dental nurses, and this is being reviewed in this light. The Irish Dental Association has also requested to meet with me. This has not yet taken place, and no direct meetings have taken place with any bodies due to the sheer volume of submissions received. As the Deputy might be aware, the Irish Dental Association is located in my constituency. I drive past its office quite regularly, so I am keen to have that meeting where we can facilitate it. Given the large quantities received, it is taking officials some time to work through all of these submissions.
Submissions to the review are considered by the interdepartmental group on economic migration policy, with membership drawn from key Departments including the Department of Health, which may provide observations. Our Department is actively engaging with other Departments, including the Department of Health, to consider submissions to the latest public consultation, which has concluded. The report containing recommendations for our consideration is expected in mid-November, and then we will be in a position to announce what changes are being made to the list. In short, we have received that submission. We are considering it at the moment, and we will announce it in mid-November.
I thank the Minister of State for confirming that the decision is to be made in November. At least we have the time span. Looking at the background to this - and it has been brought to my attention by someone who wants to come into the country - I will say at the outset that we should not have let this crisis happen in the first place. We should have had enough graduates of our own and we should have dealt with this before. We are now at this point in our lives.
In March 2022, Irish Dental Association research showed that at least 500 dentists were needed across the public and private sectors at that point. Two thirds of dentist vacancies were left unfulfilled in 2022. It was pointed out, as we know, that staffing shortages are having an impact on patient access to dental care. Two thirds of practices said that their capacity to treat emergency appointments had reduced over the past year. Research from this year highlighted that we are short of dentists, dental nurses and hygienists, pointed out that there is a lack of graduates, and recommended work change permits and so on. The research is there for us all to see, and it has been there for some years.
I acknowledge that every sector of the economy is having difficulties when it comes to labour. It is very difficult to say that this should not have been allowed to happen. It is a result of the fact that we have the fastest growing economy in the EU. We have the largest number of people at work in the history of the State, and we effectively have full employment. It is the mark of a successful economy and society when people want to move there and people are needed to move there to fill jobs of all sorts, be it dental nurses, as the Deputy has raised this morning, those in the construction industry, as raised by Deputy Nash, or those in the hospitality and agriculture sectors, as raised by Deputy O'Donoghue. We see this with economies around the world. We all know that a lot of people did not want to come to Ireland for a long time. It is a great thing when people come and contribute to our economy and society. As I said, there were 40,000 work permit approvals last year, double what it was the previous year, and it will be the same again this year.
I agree with the Deputy. We will have to develop the courses available for people to upskill, reskill and enter into these professions from the outset. As a country, we are growing. Our population is much higher now than it has been in a long time, and that requires more people for various sectors. Not all of those can be brought about domestically. We need, and will continue to need, to bring people in from outside the EEA but also 30,000 came last year from within the EU, and 4,500 from the UK through the common travel area. These are all good things. I would not necessarily say it is a crisis that they are having to come.
I would say it is a crisis because we know that in Galway, for example, we are getting phone calls regarding dentists being unavailable under the medical card scheme. There are any number of complications from the absence of dentists.
I understand that the review takes place every single year. The answer to the last question I had was regarding the review in 2020. We have had 2021 and 2022, and now we are in 2023. This crisis - the absence of dentists, dental nurses and hygienists - has existed and has been going on for a number of years. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, does not pass the Irish Dental Association office much longer and that he meets with them. I appreciate his positive response today but on a general basis, this did not happen overnight. It is not just that we have full employment now. This has been going on and there has been a failure to deal with it. The Irish Dental Association has highlighted it for a long time. I hope the Minister of State has that meeting as soon as possible.
I am committed to having those meetings when it is appropriate to do so. We have to conclude the review and look through the data. The last time this review was done, we received ten or 11 submissions. This time it has been multiples of that. That just shows where we have gone. Last year, 40,000 work permits were handed out. The number handed out the previous year was 19,000, and the number handed out prior to that - due to the Covid-19 pandemic - was 5,000. There has not been a consistent call for the last five years to add this. It has really accelerated in every occupation over the last couple of years, including dental nursing. We constantly engage. As the Minister, Deputy Coveney, laid out, there have been requests over the last couple of years to increase quotas for special sectors. We saw it with regard to people working as linemen. Very recently we saw it in the meat processing industry, and we see it in lots of different sectors. We are always open and reactive to the needs not just of industry but also of society and the sectoral Government Departments, such as, in this case, the Department of Health. I hope I can come back into this Chamber with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, in four or five weeks to give a full update on the review.
