THE Irish Prison Service expects to pay €360,000 for regular check-ups, fillings, and other dental services for inmates in Limerick Prison over the next eight years.
There is a fully equipped dental surgery on the Mulgrave Street campus and the anticipated outlay excludes the cost of providing equipment and consumables for dentists at the in-house surgery.
Dental clinics will be held once a fortnight and the range of services will be comparable to those available to medical card holders, including an annual check-up, emergency care, denture repair, extractions, and fillings.
Qualified professionals have been invited to tender for the contract to provide dental services at the prison and they are expected to begin work in August or September.
The contracts are for a period of four years and may be extended for a further four years.
According to the tender documents, the prison service aims to deliver “a quality of healthcare reflective of that available to those holding medical cards in the wider community, taking into consideration the constraints that custody imposes.
