Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will deal with the issue of compulsory publication or otherwise in a separate section. The Bill provides, in any event, that regulators will have the discretion to publish, or not, information they receive about health professionals sanctioned in other jurisdictions. This includes notification to the HSE and an employer, where known. This is particularly important given the free movement of workers across the EU arising from the professional qualifications directive and the increased mobility of health professionals globally. While we must support professional mobility, we must equally protect the public from practitioners whose competence, behaviour or conduct has been found to be deficient in other jurisdictions. In this instance, the Deputy's amendment would remove the regulator's ability to make such notifications about dentists who have been sanctioned in another jurisdiction. Acceptance of this amendment would treat dentists differently from practitioners governed by the other four health regulatory Acts.

For these reasons, I cannot support the amendment. It would speak specifically for dentists and would exclude the others. We will be dealing with the whole issue of publication with one of the upcoming amendments, specifically the publication element.