Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Chair for allowing me the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and always take every opportunity to praise his work in the Department of Health and Children.

I am glad we are having such a civilised debate at the end of the Dáil term and compliment Deputy Coveney on his speech. It is important that legislation which is good and regarded as helpful and useful is welcomed by all sides of the House. I am happy that this is the case in respect of the Health and Social Care Professionals Bill.

I acknowledge the representations I received from my constituency and professional organisations, some of which have been referred to. People, particularly those in the professions, are very glad that this overdue legislation is now before us.

When launching the Bill on 28 October 2004, the Tánaiste said it would provide for the establishment of a system of statutory registration for health and social care professionals. She went on to explain that the legislation is key to the health care approach, particularly in respect of the Quality and Fairness strategy and will expand and strengthen the regulatory environment in the health sector.

Like Deputy Dennehy, I am happy to sketch my own interest in this matter. I was a member of South Dublin County Council in 1994 and fortunate to be appointed to the then Eastern Health Board where I remained until the establishment of the Eastern Regional Health Authority. I was the founder chairman of the South Western Area Health Board. Apart from the everyday experience I have had in my life, the time I spent working in the health boards gave me tremendous experience which I can now bring to my work as a Deputy and legislator.

The purpose of establishing this regulatory system is to ensure members of the public are guided, protected and informed so that they can be confident that health and social care professionals are properly qualified, competent and fit to practice. When the Bill was published, the Department described the system of statutory regulation proposed as open and transparent, characterised by strong public interest representation which will serve to enhance the quality and accountability of health and social care services provided to the public. We have moved on since the health boards but I am sensitive to the need to make the health services accountable. Some process should be found to allow public representatives make a contribution in that regard.

I find the Health Service Executive is now dealing with our queries and correspondence in a professional way and that is as it should be. It is important we stress to the executive that those of us who are privileged enough to represent our communities often have many health queries and it is important that it would continue to provide a service for us so we can serve people in the community.

The system of statutory registration will apply in the first instance to 12 health and social care professions, including chiropodists, clinical biochemists, dieticians, medical scientists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, radiographers, social care professionals, social workers and speech and language therapists, irrespective of whether the professional works in the public or private sector or is self-employed. This is the first of three pieces of legislation to reform the regulatory environment for health professions, with legislation for medical practitioners and nurses to follow. It should be said that not everybody welcomed this legislation when it was published and many Deputies were in receipt of correspondence and representations from IMPACT, among other groups, making its case regarding the provisions in the Bill.

I represent Dublin South-West which embraces Brittas, Bohernabreena, Firhouse, Greenhills, Templeogue and Tallaght and the issue of the lack of speech and language therapists crops up regularly through representations from parents, schools and Tallaght Hospital. While not wanting to divert from the issues relating to the Bill, I wish to make the Minister of State aware that there is still a great demand for speech and language therapists in various communities and my constituency is no different from anywhere else in that regard. Since I became a Dáil Deputy three years ago, I have had a number of queries in that regard from Tallaght Hospital and from a local school, St. Mark's primary school, in Springfield where I live.

It is important that we maintain pressure to ensure that speech and language therapy is delivered, and that we continue to support people and stress to the Department of Health and Children that there is a difficulty in recruiting speech and language therapists. Apparently there is a difficulty in training a sufficient number of therapists and we should take the opportunity on every occasion to stress our support for what the Government is trying to achieve on this issue. I hope the Minister of State will send a note down the line on that point, not only for Tallaght, although principally for that area, but also for other communities.

The Health and Social Care Professionals Bill provides for the establishment of a system of statutory registration for health and social care professionals. We must acknowledge that the Government has always emphasised the importance of building consensus by using a highly consultative process with the professions involved. In this particular case, and if my mail is anything to go by, that is being achieved. The purpose of establishing this regulatory system is to ensure that members of the public are guided, protected and informed. In the past, the work of some of these professionals, through no fault of theirs, was not really known to the public. People did not always know what was involved and being done on their behalf by such professionals.

We live in a society that demands information and it is important that we all take our responsibilities seriously in that regard. People need to know what is involved with a procedure and what is being done on their behalf. They also need to feel safe, as a number of contributors have already stated. This Bill has been broadly welcomed and it will do much good with regard to increasing people's sense of safety.

Only a handful of health care professions are subject to statutory regulation at present, namely, doctors, nurses, dentists, opticians and pharmacists. I do not want to single out doctors as I have noticed that the last two occupants of the Chair during this debate have been doctors. That reminds me that those of our colleagues who are medical doctors will be telling Members of the House tomorrow to try to relax and take some time off during the summer. I know that members of the media do not want us to do that but I hope that the public does not think that we are going off for three months because we are not. I look forward to just taking a couple of weeks off and I will take any advice that any medical doctor gives me in that regard and rest for a couple of weeks.

Most Deputies received telephone calls from one of the national newspapers yesterday inquiring about our holiday plans. I am not sure if they reached the Ceann Comhairle's office.

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