Ms Orla Keegan:

Absolutely. At present, practitioners call themselves counsellors and they may have a special interest in bereavement. They do not have to demonstrate a competency in it. No doubt there are situations where persons are not well served by the encounters in which they engage. Ironically, some of the volunteer bereavement support services would be much better trained and could be better able to demonstrate their competency because of some of the systems of best practice that they have in place. No doubt there really is much more to be done.