Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister MP:
“The threat of the Protocol to dentistry in Northern Ireland became more real today with the publication of the amended EU Regulation on Mercury (Dental Amalgam) in the EU Official Journal (see here Regulation (EU) 2024/1849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 amending Regulation (EU) 2017/852 on mercury as regards dental amalgam and other mercury-added products subject to export, import and manufacturing restrictionsText with EEA relevance. (europa.eu)).
“The ban would take effect from 1 January 2025.
“There is a very real concern within the profession that EU zealots may oppose applying the Stormont Brake and that the ban will apply to Northern Ireland regardless of the significant impact on this important public service, which has been estimated to be around £22m per annum. Even if the Brake is pulled there is no guarantee of the proposal not having serious consequences for dentistry in Northern Ireland.
“NHS dentistry is already dangerously underfunded with an exodus of dentists to the private sector because they feel they have no other option.
“Government, both at Stormont and Westminster, needs to provide urgent reassurance to the profession.
“At present NHS funding barely covers amalgam fillings which means that if the EU ban proceeds NHS dental services will become unsustainable in Northern Ireland even as they continue in Great Britain because the alternatives to amalgam are so much more expensive. It is absurd that a foreign parliament should be making our laws on anything, but that they should be making laws that have the potential to place an important aspect of one of our great national institutions, the NHS, in jeopardy, is intolerable.”