The level of spending on dental treatments for medical card holders in Clare increased by over €200,000 last year.
The latest HSE figures shows this county had the seventh lowest spend nationwide.
A total of €1,358,247 has been spent on dental treatments for medical card holders in Clare in 2024.
The figure is 18% above the expenditure of over €1.1m for the same services in this county for the whole of 2023.
There has been a slight increase in the number of treatments carried out with 19,814 episodes of dental care completed in Clare last year.
There’s also been a marked rise in below the line treatments, which are generally considered to be more complex and involve procedures such as root canal therapy and prosthetic implants.
At the end of 2024, 13 dentists in Clare were contracted to the HSE to provide medical card services, which is less than half the 28 dentists that were subscribed here when records began in 2017.