Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his informed contribution on this. I do not mind robust opinion and I do not in any way refer to the Deputy in this regard but I do not intend to allow myself to be in any way misrepresented. The policy as set out by then Minister, Deputy Varadkar, is the policy I am putting into law, which is that people will only be able to practise up to the level of their qualification and if they lack a qualification beyond musculoskeletal therapy, they will not be entitled to practise. If they practise beyond that, the sanctions that will apply will be the same that apply to all other professions that have been dealt with through our State regulatory body, CORU, up to and including being struck off the register and losing their ability to have a livelihood. The sanctions, therefore, are serious.

However, the Deputy made a fair point about the need to provide further clarity and I am happy to undertake to do that for both the ISCP and IAPT. I am satisfied there should be further engagement between my Department and both bodies regarding the threshold at which the competency level is set. That issue has been raised by everybody over the past number of weeks and it should be re-examined. As the Deputy correctly said, this is about public safety. Both bodies and every Oireachtas Member supports that.

As I have said and the Deputy has acknowledged, we do not include "scope of practice " in primary legislation for good reason. Professions evolve and if we have a scenario whereby we have to return to primary legislation, all of us knowing how arduous and time consuming that can be, that would not be in the interests of the public. While recognising that scopes of practice evolve as well as the need to provide public protection, each profession's code of professional conduct and ethics obliges registrants to act within the limits of their knowledge, skill, competence and experience and any breach of the code is defined in the principal Act as professional misconduct and is liable to investigation and to sanctions up to and including cancellation of registration under the Act's fitness to practise provision.

The primary legislation envisages what to do if someone exceeds his or her scope of practice but scope of practice is defined in the profession's code of professional conduct and also ethics. The Physiotherapist Registration Board has such a code and it will apply to those registered under those temporary provisions as well as to other registrants. I want to be very clear that such practitioners or, indeed, any physiotherapist without the up-to-date skills in cardio or respiratory and neurological therapists will be obliged to confine their practice to musculoskeletal therapy or face investigation and sanctions. That is included in both the combination of the legislation and the code of conduct. I want to be constructive and ensure that any misgivings, concerns, or lack of clarity is ironed out between now and Report Stage. If members of this committee are minded, and subject to our legal advice and our drafting, we could look at amendments on Report Stage. I would be happy to come forward with an amendment to provide that a code of professional conduct and ethics adopted by a registration board shall require registrants to act with in the limits of their knowledge, skill, competence and experience. This would copperfasten that code in primary legislation and legally require all registration boards to include this provision in their codes, while stopping short of defining the detail. If one accepts that I cannot define the scope of practice in primary legislation, as I think we do, and if I can underpin the code of professional conduct and ethics adopted by the registration board and the requirement of all registrants to adhere to that in the primary legislation, it will go some way to providing further clarity. I am happy to have this conversation between Committee and Report Stages.