Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No 2:

In page 3, line 7, after “years” to insert the following:“to repeal and replace section 8 of the Opticians Act 1956 to provide for the years which are to be election years for the purposes of that Act;”.

The inclusion of the amendment to the Opticians Act 1956 in this Bill has necessitated a change to the Long Title. Amendment No. 2 is a technical amendment to provide for the Title to be altered and I ask Deputies to support it.

Amendment No. 6 relates to the Opticians Act 1956, which regulates the professions of optometrist and dispensing optician. The amendment is to change the election year of Bord na Radharcmhastóirí, the Opticians Board, from 2014 to 2015 and provide that the subsequent election years will be 2019 and each fifth successive year thereafter. The amendment would have the practical effect of removing the requirement to hold elections to the board this year. It would also extend the terms of office of the current members of the board for up to one year until the regulation of the professions of optometrist and dispensing optician has been transferred to the amended Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 by the end of this year or early next year. The amendment must be made before the autumn of this year because the Act requires that the elections in an election year be under way by that stage. The alternative would be to hold elections and appoint a new board in 2014 to hold office for a very short period, if at all.

The background to the amendment is the well-advanced proposal to subsume the Opticians Board into the Health and Social Care Professionals Council in accordance with the Government's programme of rationalisation of State agencies. The drafting of the Bill to rationalise the Opticians Board into the Health and Social Care Professionals Council is being finalised and is expected to be published in the coming weeks with a view to its enactment by the autumn of this year. This will pave the way to allow the Opticians Board to be subsumed into the council by the end of this year or early next year. The Bill will provide for the repeal of the Opticians Act 1956, the dissolution of the Opticians Board and the establishment of a new optical registration board to regulate the professions of optometrist and dispensing optician under the 2005 Act. In the meantime, a non-statutory, interim optical registration board has been established to begin the necessary preparatory work, including the drafting of by-laws. The intention is that the members of the interim board will be appointed to the statutory board when it is established, and the statutory board will immediately publish the draft by-laws as part of the required consultation process.

The 2005 Act provides for the statutory regulation of the professions designated under the Act, namely, clinical biochemist, dietician, medical scientist, occupational therapist, orthoptist, physiotherapist, podiatrist, psychologist, radiographer, social care worker, social worker, and speech and language therapist. Regulation under the 2005 Act is primarily by way of the statutory protection of professional titles by confining their use solely to persons granted registration under the Act. The structure of the system of statutory registration comprises registration boards, the committee structure to deal with disciplinary matters, and the Health and Social Care Professionals Council with overall responsibility for the regulatory system. The proposed amendments to the Opticians Act are consequential to its proposed repeal during 2014 or early 2015.

As 2015 is an election year under the Opticians Act 1956, the terms of office of the current board will expire on 31 December this year, and an election will need to be held before 1 December 2014. The proposal is to amend section 8 of the Act to change the next election year from 2014 to 2015. While it is intended that the legislation to dissolve the Opticians Board will be enacted in time to allow the new registration board to be established and make the necessary by-laws before the end of the year, any slippage in an already tight timeline could cause the delayed transfer, possibly into 2015, of the registrants under the Opticians Act 1956 to the new registers to be established under the amended Act. This amendment, by removing the need to hold an election this year, would also ensure the current board would remain in place to continue regulating optometrists and dispensing opticians for as long as necessary into 2015 until the Opticians Board is dissolved and its functions transferred to the Health and Social Care Professionals Council and new optical registration board. Therefore, I respectfully ask the Deputies to support the amendment.

Amendment No. 10 is a technical amendment to provide for a collective citation for the Opticians Acts following on from amendment No. 6, and I ask the Deputies to support it.

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