James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Section 9 of the principal Act relates to membership of the health and social care professional council. This amending section is crucial to the continuing function of the council as it will allow the Minister to continue to appoint professional members to vacancies arising on the council until such time as all registration boards that are established under the legislation have held elections or are in a position to nominate elected members for appointment to the council. The phased establishment of the 12 registration boards has meant that in the absence of elected members, professional members cannot be appointed to the council to fill the vacancies arising from the completion of the terms of office of the original 12 professional members. Deputy Fitzpatrick’s amendment attempts to rectify that situation.

The 2005 Act provides for the appointment of 12 professional members out of a total of 25 on the nomination by relevant registration board of one of its elected members. As is usual in such cases and since no registration board would have been established, the Act also empowers the Minister for Health to directly appoint these professional members for the first term. The Act, however, does not allow the Minister to appoint members for a subsequent term pending the establishment of the registration boards. There are currently no professional members on the council. I agreed to allow 12 professionals attend council meetings in an observer capacity. However, they do not have voting rights and are not included when considering a quorum. This amendment would allow me to appoint professional members to the council.

I acknowledge the work done by several counsellors and psychotherapists in coming together under the umbrella of the psychological therapies forum to advise as a single voice in so far as is possible. This is a key component required for the development of common standards of education, training and codes of practice for each individual profession. There is still, however, a considerable amount of work to be undertaken to bring this work to a level that will meet the standards required for designation under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. In Part 1, the 12 professions designated have long-term agreement and service-wide acceptance of title and recognised associated entry level qualifications required for existing practitioners as set out in Schedule 3. This dual requirement is not established in the case of counselling and psychotherapy. To designate the professional using the title “psychological therapist”, particularly in the absence of a corresponding set of agreed qualifications for inclusion in the grandparent arrangement under Schedule 3, is premature and could have the effect of excluding as many counsellors and psychotherapists as it would include.

However, I am supportive of addressing the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists sooner rather than later. Replies to parliamentary questions and meetings with various delegations have been based on a policy position that statutory regulation for this profession would be considered for designation by regulation under section 4(2) of the 2005 Act in time to come when all registration boards for the 12 designated professions have been established.

Accepting the concerns raised by Deputies on Second Stage, I now intend to take a different approach with regard to the timeframe for the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists. I am aware that the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, HETAC, now subsumed into Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, has been working on the development of a standard for the award of higher education qualifications in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy. Parties involved include the higher education institutions, international experts and the Irish professional bodies as represented by the psychological therapies forum. Its work is scheduled to conclude in 2013. While academic qualifications are not sufficient in themselves as a means of professional regulation, agreement on academic standards and quality assurance does form a critical building block for any modern regulatory system for professions such as counsellors and psychotherapists.

I am now committing to have my officials engage with the psychological therapies forum and other relevant stakeholders once HETAC concludes its work and makes a report available with a view to working through the outstanding issues that have yet to be addressed and in a way that achieves regulation of the profession as soon as possible in the best interests of the protection of the public. It should also be noted that section 4(2) empowers me, following consultation with the council, to designate by regulation any health or social care professional not designated under section 4(1) provided the criteria set out in section 4(2) are met by the profession. This amendment is not required to achieve regulation of the profession in question. Also, while counsellors and psychotherapists are not subject to professional statutory regulation, they are subject to legislation similar to other practitioners including consumer legislation, competition, contract and criminal law.

Accordingly, I cannot accept this amendment. As a general practitioner for over 25 years, I have always been concerned about referring my patients to a credible individual who had basic standards of professional qualification that ensured my patient got the service he or she required.