Additional Qualifications

Update – December 2024

The current practice of recording additional qualifications with the Dental Council will be discontinued in its current form from the end of December 2024. It is not proposed to retrospectively remove any additional qualifications previously recorded against any dentist’s entry in the Register of Dentists, and it will still be possible to add additional qualifications until the end of 2024 that have previously been accepted by the Dental Council.

Please note that the Dental Council will continue to register, under Section 31 of the Dentists Act 1985, postgraduate qualifications awarded following completion of programmes of specialist dental training in an Irish dental school and leading to the award of a D.Clin.Dent. or D.Ch.Dent. For the specialties or Oral Surgery and Orthodontics, completion of these programmes can provide access to the Register of Dental Specialists. Further details on the registration pathway for dental specialists can be found here.

Dentists are entitled to list their own primary and further qualifications in their dental practices and on websites etc. At all times, dentists are bound by the overarching requirements of the Code of Practice relating to Professional Behaviour and Ethical Conduct that such listings are truthful, accurate, not designed to mislead, and do not suggest a professional status other than the one recorded in the Register of Dentists. From a patient safety perspective, dentists are obliged to work only within their own competence, and to offer services accordingly.