Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Health and Social Care Professionals (Amendment) Bill 2012 is a relatively short technical Bill, with 20 sections in total, Committee Stage of which was passed on 9 November, without amendment.

The Bill proposes to amend the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 to provide for the enhanced and effective functioning of the Health and Social Care Professionals Council and the registration boards established under the Act. It will also amend the Act to better provide for the assessment and recognition in Ireland of qualifications obtained outside the State and to ensure compliance with the relevant EU instrument.

The 2005 Act provides for the establishment of a system of statutory regulation for designated health and social care professions. The regulatory system comprises a registration board for each of 12 designated professions, a Health and Social Care Professionals Council with overall responsibility for the regulatory system and a committee structure to deal with disciplinary matters. These bodies are collectively known informally as CORU. CORU is responsible for protecting the public by regulating health and social care professionals in Ireland. It promotes high standards of professional conduct and professional education, training and competence among the registrants.

I thank Deputies for the valuable and thoughtful contributions made on Second and Committee Stages. Deputies highlighted the urgent need to bring counsellors and psychotherapists within the ambit of the 2005 Act. I would like to now restate the commitment made by the Minister, Deputy Reilly on Committee stage to make the necessary regulations under the Act as soon as possible. A key regulation in this regard, namely, the regulation to prescribe the qualifications needed to register under the Act, will be made when the minimum qualifications and standards of knowledge, skill and competence for future counsellors and psychotherapists have been set by Quality and Qualifications Ireland. To explain further, the regulation of designated professions under the Act is, in the first instance, activated by the registration of persons with specific qualifications approved by the relevant registration board. These approved qualifications are awarded by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, HETAC, now subsumed into Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, or by the universities. In the case of counselling and psychotherapy, however, QQI is only now in the process of establishing standards of knowledge, skill and competence to be acquired by those wishing to practice in this field. When these standards have been determined, in consultation with the professional bodies and other stakeholders, the educational institutions offering courses and programmes in counselling and psychotherapy can seek QQI accreditation and, in time, QQI will be able to award qualifications to those graduating from the accredited courses. These QQI qualifications will be the minimum qualifications required of counsellors and psychotherapists to register under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005.

The Minister, Deputy Reilly, will be asking Quality and Qualifications Ireland to conclude its work as soon as possible next year. In tandem, the Department will work with CORU to have all the other necessary arrangements in place so that there will be no delay in establishing the counsellors and psychotherapists registration board when the minimum qualification standards have been set. On Committee Stage, Deputies raised concerns about inadequately trained counsellors and psychotherapists advertising services to the public. While many services, private and public, have quality assurance arrangements in place, as have a number of reputable professional bodies, there is cause for concern that standards are not universally high. Deputies pointed out that these advertisements are often aimed at people in vulnerable or distressing situations. It was asked whether it would be possible to require those advertising counselling and psychotherapy services to alert the public to the fact that counsellors and psychotherapists are not currently regulated under the 2005 Act. This may be a worthwhile temporary measure in the interest of public safety particularly and the Department is now seeking legal advice on the practicalities involved. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, hopes to be able to come to a clear policy position on this proposal shortly.

I commend the Bill to the House.

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