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

I completely accept Deputy Dan Neville's bona fides and share his concerns. However, I have to face the reality that under Schedule 3 to the Act, the qualifications for each of the named groups are defined. There is no such definition of psychological therapist. Even the term "psychological therapist" cuts across psychiatry and psychology. There are legal implications for psychiatrists and psychologists. Please do not misunderstand me; I want to expedite this issue, but I cannot do so technically because the qualifications are not defined under Schedule 3 and we need to allow HETAC to complete its work before we can progress the matter.

Section 4(2) of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 states:

After consulting the Council, the Minister may, by regulation, designate for the purposes of this Act any health or social care profession not already designated under subsection (1), but only if--

(a) the fitness of the members to practise their profession is not regulated by or under another Act of the Oireachtas,
(b) the Minister has given interested persons, organisations and other bodies an opportunity to make representations to him or her concerning the proposed designation,
(c) the Minister considers that it is appropriate and in the public interest that the profession be designated under this Act, and
(d) the steps in subsection (8) have been taken.

This is a clear licence for me and I am giving an undertaking here to do it. I must take the advice of the experts. It would be very easy for me politically to accept an amendment, but I could then find myself in a legal nightmare, and I do not want to do that. We are all trying to protect patients and consumers from people with substandard qualifications who present themselves as something else. I want to do this as quickly as possible, but it must be done according to the law under advice from legal people. I accept totally what the Deputy said about the Fine Gael motion when it was in opposition, but again, if there are legal implications, we cannot just close our eyes to them. We must take the advice available to us.

I want this to be done and dusted by 2014. It will be if I have anything to do with it, and I will have a lot to do with it. It is an area about which I am particularly concerned because, as a practising doctor for years, I was always terribly concerned about the standard of people to whom I referred patients. If I referred someone to a consultant I knew the consultant had a particular standard of training, and the same is true of a physiotherapist. However, I did not know what I was dealing with if I referred someone to a counsellor. The only parameter I could use to give some protection to the patient was that the person was HSE-approved. I agree 100% with the Deputy on all of these issues. However, there is a technical legal issue which I cannot overcome. Therefore, I cannot accept the amendment.