Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 6, line 16, to delete “and”.

Amendment No. 4 is consequential on No. 5. The Bill as initiated sought to remove a provision in CORU’s legislation which would allow social care workers to seek registration on the basis of their employer's opinion of their proficiency during the grandfathering period. That speaks directly to the point that Deputy Durkan made. The Bill as initiated sought to remove the ability for workers to get on to the register based on the employer's opinion. That was the Bill we discussed on Second Stage. It was proposed to replace this with a requirement that practitioners who do not hold an approved qualification must pass a competence test. That proposal was introduced on the basis of concerns by CORU which advised that its implementation could be challenging. At the time of the Bill’s Second Stage debate, legal advice provided to my officials suggested that in order to ensure full compliance with an EU directive on the proportionality of professional regulations, a public consultation on these measures should be carried out. That directive requires member states to conduct a public consultation and an assessment of the proportionality of any new or amending regulatory provisions which may result in restricting access to a regulated profession, that is, exactly what we are doing here. The public consultation took place in November and sought the views of a broad range of stakeholders. The outcome suggested that an overly challenging assessment process and, in particular, the obligation to sit a competency test could potentially remove a large cohort of existing practitioners from the social care workforce. Concerns were also raised that the new measures did not adequately recognise that existing social care workers are employed in diverse settings. Some very competent practitioners might now have specialised skills and could have difficulty passing a broad assessment. If dedicated, competent and experienced staff were unable to continue in their profession, services and clients could be very severely impacted. My officials assessed the potential negative impact on the existing practitioners of the proposed amendments from both a proportionality and fairness perspective. The risks identified by CORU were also re-examined alongside other risks such as the impact on service provision and ultimately the patients’ safety in the event that the supply of social care workers was diminished by the new requirements. CORU was also consulted and the conclusion from the exercise was that registration through the employers attestation of proficiency during the grandfathering period should be retained. However, in order to maximise patient safety, I propose to make clear that the social care workers registration board may refuse to grant registration in various circumstances. Examples include where there are doubts as to the competence of the employer or the duration of employment.

Amendment No. 5 states that one or more requirement specified in subsections (d)(i) to (iv), inclusive, must be met. The requirements are as follows: (i) the person holds a qualification listed, that is the current 30 courses; and "(ii) the person holds a professional qualification that, in the opinion of the Social Care Workers Registration Board, is sufficiently relevant to the profession of social care worker" - that relates to the point that the Deputy was making - "and attests to a standard of proficiency corresponding to a qualification listed opposite the profession in the third column of Schedule 3."

The third requirement is: "(iii) the person successfully completes an assessment of professional competence set by the Social Care Workers Registration Board in accordance with any guidelines issued by the Council". The fourth is: "(iv) subject to subsections (2A) and (3), the person’s employer or former employer attests, by written opinion, to the person’s having achieved the standard of proficiency required for the practice of the profession of social care worker". There are additional safeguards around that. CORU can say, for example, that it does not accept a certain employer or it does not accept an employer's evidence, level of proficiency as standard or timelines. CORU will issue a very detailed guideline of what an employer must consider when attesting to the proficiency of any member of staff. CORU, at any point, can say on an individual application or to an employer in total that it does not accept the evidence at all or in regard to the individual employee.