Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Durkan and I have had many chats about this. As he knows, I held out on this one for a while. I understood the views being put forward by a number of Members of the Oireachtas. I have to be careful in what I say because I think there is a legal challenge and legal correspondence in my Department in respect of this. The bottom line was that in order to comply with the directive, one needed to prescribe certain professionals and in order to do that, they needed to be regulated. As the Deputy knows, chiropractors in our country are not regulated although in other countries they are. It varies significantly across the European Union. I am of the instinctive view that they are a group that should be regulated, but there is a long list of people seeking regulation. On the advice of the chief medical officer and others, I asked that the Health Research Board would look at the regulation of chiropractors, risk and so on, and I am awaiting that report.