Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It seems the intention of this is to lower the bar. I do not know if that is the case but my impression is that the bar for standards in social care is being lowered. I am sure there are potentially safety issues and risk issues involved in that but what concerns me is that there is not consistency. The work the board is doing is about assessing the level of risk and saying that there are some professions that would put patients potentially at much greater risk than social care workers would. The need to assess the risk for the other professions that are not included in CORU is being reviewed. Yet, in relation to social care, the standard is being lowered. There is a lack of consistency here. It seems to be kind of backfilling to address the issue that arose last year in relation to students in the business school.