Statutory CPD for Dentists in Ireland: What the Bill Would Change

Dental CPD in Ireland today: an ethical duty, not a legal one

Most health professionals in Ireland work under a statute that tells them, in terms, to maintain their competence. Dentists do not. The Dentists Act 1985 sets up the Dental Council, the registers, education and training duties and the fitness to practise system, but its education provisions (Part IV, sections 34 to 37) deal with primary qualifications and specialist training, not continuing education after registration.

The Dental Council said so directly in its March 2026 letter to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health: "There presently is no statutory obligation on a dentist to maintain their competence." It added that dentistry "is an outlier in this regard" among regulated health professions in Ireland.

So where does the duty come from?

It comes from the Dental Council's Code of Practice relating to Professional Behaviour and Ethical Conduct (March 2022). One of the Code's general principles is to keep your clinical and professional skills and knowledge up to date through continuing professional development. Paragraph 3.7 goes further: "You should be able to provide evidence that you have undertaken sufficient continuing professional development" to keep your clinical knowledge and skills current.

"Ethical, not statutory" does not mean optional. The Code states that not complying with its guidance may result in fitness to practise proceedings under the Dentists Act 1985. In 2023 the Department of Health made the same point in a written parliamentary reply: CPD is not set out in legislation, but it can still be raised in a fitness to practise complaint. What is missing today is a way for the Council to check CPD routinely and act early, before a concern turns into a complaint. Annual retention on the register is a separate process; our comparison of annual registration renewal across Irish regulators sets out the dental retention rules next to those for doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

Dental Council CPD requirements now: 250 hours over five years

Until a statutory scheme is in force, the benchmark is the Council's CPD guide, first published in April 2015 and revised in December 2019. Its opening position is plain: "It remains an ethical obligation for dentists to undertake CPD." Our Dental Council guide for dentists and dental professionals covers registration and the Code more broadly; this article stays with CPD and the Bill.

The 50 core structured hours are split across seven subjects over the five years. BLS sits outside them: the guide expects you to keep your Basic Life Support current, and that time is counted on top of the core hours.

An activity only counts as structured if it meets all four of the guide's criteria: concise educational aims and objectives, clear anticipated outcomes, quality controls such as a formal way to give feedback, and documentary proof of attendance from the organiser. Anything that misses one of the four is self-directed. The guide also allows hands-on sessions to be recorded at double the time spent.

Two lines in the guide show it was written with legislation in mind. On evidence: "You are not required to submit any documentary evidence to the Council just yet", which may change "when CPD becomes mandatory". On making CPD mandatory: "This requires new legislation." The Bill now in preparation is that legislation. Our Dental Council hub summarises the guide; the rest of this article deals with what changes when the law catches up.

Dentists (Amendment) Bill: what has actually been approved

Two Government decisions have been made, and they are different things.

A General Scheme sets out the intended provisions as heads, in plain language. It is not a Bill. The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel still has to turn it into legislative text, the Bill must be published and pass both Houses of the Oireachtas, the President must sign it, and the sections that create the CPD duty must be commenced. At 14 October 2026, we could find no Dentists Bill on the Oireachtas Bills register.

What the Department has confirmed

• The Bill would amend the Dentists Act 1985 to give CPD for dentists a statutory basis.
• It would set a new framework for the obligations and powers of dentists, the regulator and employers.
• The Dental Council would be able to act proactively on non-compliance, rather than only when a fitness to practise complaint is made.
• The stated aims are patient safety, public confidence in the profession, and aligning dental regulation with other health professions.

The Dental Council "warmly welcomes" the move and says it will work with the Minister and the Department on a framework focused on patient safety. Neither body has published the hours, the cycle, the audit method, the sanctions or a start date. Until the Bill text is published, nobody can tell you how many hours the law will require.

Statutory dental CPD timeline: from consultation to commencement

Statutory dental CPD has been on the table for more than a decade. The timeline shows where things stand. Completed steps are marked as done; future steps are the normal legislative path, not announced dates.

1. June–July 2013Public consultation on replacing the Dentists Act 1985

   85% of respondents supported a duty on dentists to maintain their professional competence, and 75% supported proving it to the Council under a competence scheme.

2. April 2019National Oral Health Policy

   Commits to updating the Dentists Act as a priority, which the Council called an important step towards mandatory CPD.

3. 1 January 2020Council pauses direct approval of CPD activities

   Providers now give attendees the assurances they used to give the Council. Activities are described as structured or self-directed.

4. January 2023Minister commits to three interim amendments

   Including a statutory competence scheme, as the Council recorded in its 2026 letter.

5. December 2025Government approves the policy

   Drafting of the General Scheme begins.

6. 13 March 2026Council writes to the Joint Committee on Health

   Says there is "unanimity among the dental community that a statutory competence scheme is required."

7. 7 August 2026General Scheme approved by Government

   The current stage.

8. Not yet scheduledDrafting, publication and Oireachtas stages

   The Bill is drafted, published and passed by the Dáil and Seanad, then signed by the President.

9. Not yet scheduledCommencement and a Council scheme

   The CPD duty applies only from commencement. The detailed scheme then has to be set up.

Statutory CPD vs current guidance: what changes for dentists

This is the comparison most dentists want. The "proposed" column only contains what the Department or the Council has confirmed officially. Where something has not been published, it says so.

The strongest single change is the one in the fourth row. Today, a weak CPD record usually only comes to light when there is already a concern about a dentist's practice. Under the proposal, the Council would be able to find and deal with CPD gaps on their own.

From fitness to practise to proactive oversight: how enforcement could shift

Under the current Act, the Council or any person can apply to the Fitness to Practise Committee for an inquiry on set grounds, including professional misconduct. That route is built for serious concerns. It is not designed to check, year by year, whether thousands of dentists are keeping up to date. The register grew from 3,291 dentists in 2020 to 3,942 in 2025, according to the Council.

The Government's stated aim is to let the Council deal with CPD non-compliance directly. How it would do that (reminders, audits, conditions, or referral only when other steps fail) will be in the Bill text and any rules made under it. None of that has been published, so treat precise descriptions of audits or sanctions as speculation for now.

A reference point, not a prediction: the medical model

Doctors show what a mature statutory scheme can look like. Section 94 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 requires a registered medical practitioner to "maintain the practitioner's professional competence on an ongoing basis" under a professional competence scheme. Section 93 requires the HSE and other employers to facilitate it. The detail is set by Medical Council rules, which currently require at least 50 hours of CPD per scheme year and provide for recognised scheme operators and accredited providers. Our guides to the Medical Council PCS audit and non-compliance and which professional competence scheme to enrol in explain how that works in practice for doctors. The dental framework may look quite different, and the Department has said nothing to suggest it will copy the medical one.

CPD providers, employers and the wider team: the questions the Bill must answer

Providers

Since 1 January 2020 the Dental Council has not approved CPD activities directly. Providers are expected to give attendees the information and assurances they used to give the Council, such as full timetables and presenter credentials, and the guide asks organisers to keep signed attendance sheets for at least five years. So today the dentist decides whether an activity is structured, using the four criteria.

Whether the Bill will bring back provider approval, or create accreditation like the medical model, has not been confirmed in the Department's release. The Council's March 2026 letter lists a separate interim amendment, a "legislative framework for the better regulation of education programmes and providers", alongside the competence scheme. That is about education programmes generally, and should not be read as a confirmed CPD accreditation regime.

Employers

The Department has confirmed that employers are part of the new framework. For practice owners and HSE dental services, that may mean a duty to support CPD, as section 93 does for doctors' employers, though the dental wording is not yet known. In 2023 the Department noted that most dental practices are small and medium enterprises, and said any mandatory model would need to be proportionate and pragmatic, with a proportionality assessment under Directive (EU) 2018/958.

Hygienists, dental nurses and other team members

The official announcements are about dentists. The Council keeps registers for clinical dental technicians, dental hygienists, orthodontic therapists and dental nurses. Whether, and when, a statutory CPD duty would reach these groups has not been stated. If you are a hygienist or dental nurse, keep good CPD records anyway (they support you under the Code and with employers), but do not assume the Bill covers you until the text says so.

How dentists can prepare for mandatory CPD now

You cannot comply with rules that have not been written. You can make sure that, whatever the scheme looks like, your record already shows steady, relevant and well-evidenced learning. These steps are good practice under the current guide, not legal requirements.

1. Total your last five years against the guide

   Add up total, structured and core hours. The 250 / 100 / 50 split is the only published dental benchmark, and it is the obvious starting point for any statutory scheme.

2. Check each structured item against the four criteria

   Aims, outcomes, quality control and documentary proof of attendance. If one is missing, record the item as self-directed. Ask any provider, online or in person (including us and our online CPD courses for Irish dental professionals), for the details you need.

3. Close core-subject gaps first

   Audit, governance and radiation protection are easy to under-record because they rarely come up at clinical conferences. A small clinical audit with a re-audit is useful learning in its own right. Our quality improvement and clinical audit course walks through audit design and PDSA cycles, and our list of practice review and clinical audit ideas, written for doctors, includes audit designs that transfer readily to a dental practice. For the communication and record-keeping hours, dental consent, communication and record-keeping covers valid consent and defensible dental records, and infection prevention and control training covers hand hygiene, PPE, sharps and transmission-based precautions.

4. Keep records in a format you could submit

   Name, registration number, date, activity type, venue, provider, title and subject, as the guide lists, plus certificates. Structured and self-directed entries should be kept separately, for at least five years.

5. Add a line of reflection

   The guide does not require it. Still, one or two sentences on what changed in your practice makes the record more meaningful, and it is easy to adapt if a future scheme asks for evidence of impact.

6. Watch for the Bill's publication

   Check the Oireachtas Bills page and the Dental Council's news page. The Council has said it will set up a scheme, and its guidance will matter as much as the Act.

• I know my five-year totals: overall, structured and core hours
• Every structured entry has proof of attendance on file
• I have covered all seven core subjects at least once in the cycle
• My BLS is current and recorded separately from core hours
• Records are stored safely and go back at least five years

Misreadings to avoid while the Bill is pending

If a CPD gap has already become part of a complaint or inquiry, the issue is no longer about this Bill. Our guide to Dental Council remediation courses deals with that situation.

Checked against the official sources above in October 2026. Rules and fees change, so confirm current requirements with your regulator or scheme.