The Irish Dental Association has offered to meet the Department of Social and Family Affairs over a dispute which has seen patients paying substantially more for fillings and other treatments.
However, it has told the Department that it will not withdraw its industrial action in the dispute, which centres on the amount the State pays towards the cost of treatments.
The patients affected are those whose income is below €45,000 a year and who are covered for a dental subsidy on the basis of their PRSI contributions.
For some procedures, such as root-canal treatment, the Department pays a fixed amount and the patient pays the remainder of the fee set by the dentist.
Under the scheme, the Department stipulates the total fee for many common procedures, such as fillings. This arrangement followed negotiations with the association. In these cases the Department pays 70 per cent of the fee and the patient pays 30 per cent.
Dentists argue, however, that the Department is paying 70 per cent of a fee which is too small in the first place.
For instance, the Department pays €26.54 for a simple filling and the patient pays €13.08, a total of €39.62. The Irish Dental Association says the economic cost of a filling is €60 to €80.
In its industrial action, which has been going on for some months, the association has advised members to accept the Department subsidy of, in this case, €26.54 and to negotiate with the patient how much the balance will be.
The Department has threatened to stop paying subsidies to dentists who fail to abide by the scheme, but this action has been postponed to allow for talks.
It says that it has abided by all its contracts with dentists and that it wants them to suspend their action to allow talks to take place "on a non-confrontational basis".
The association said that it will not suspend what is a limited form of industrial action and it has offered to meet the Department in just over two weeks' time.
The Department said yesterday that it had nothing to add to its previous statements on the issue.
Mr Donal Atkins, secretary-general of the association, said that under the scheme dentists are expected to provide treatment of the same quality as that provided to private patients. Dentists are determined to protect these standards of treatment.