John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

While I am happy to support the Bill, I wish to make a couple of points. The opticians did not contact me, although as is pretty clear from what is on the bridge of my nose, I contact opticians from time to time. However, my colleague, Deputy Regina Doherty, made an interesting point and raised a fair question on some of the standards these changes might impose on opticians, as opposed to other health professionals. I welcome the progress that is being made on the registration boards for the various health professionals, and this legislation is another step along that particular route. I have no other particular observations to make specifically about the role of opticians.

However, I wish to take this opportunity and as this issue is relevant to the Minister of State who is present, she might be able to allay some of my concerns and answer some questions about a group that has contacted me repeatedly in recent years. I refer to psychologists and this carries on from some of Deputy O'Reilly's earlier remarks and on the standards that are employed within the HSE regarding the hiring and promotion of psychologists. Psychologists tend to be broken down into two principal categories, namely, clinical psychologists and counselling or educational psychologists. There appears to be a practice in play - perhaps this has been rectified in the recent past but it certainly had not been earlier - that opportunities for promotion and for further hiring appear to be limited to the role of clinical psychologists, to the exclusion of counselling and educational psychologists. As matters stand, this practice is not commonplace either in the neighbouring jurisdiction or in other countries I have been able to take as examples. The professional organisation to which I refer has raised a legitimate concern that effectively since 2009, the previous Government and the Health Service Executive operating under it more or less formally blocked promotional opportunities for counselling or educational psychologists within the system. I understand that more than 20 vacancies existed for a period of between 18 months to two years, two of which were filled in the end by clinical psychologists. However, educational psychologists - these are people who are working within the HSE at present - were more or less barred from applying for those positions.

I reiterate that in the North of Ireland, across the water and further afield, including the United States, Canada and Australia, such differentiations do not appear to exist. Moreover, I note that in a reply to a question I tabled a number of months ago, the then Minister outlined that a working group had been established within the HSE to agree appropriate eligibility for a set of criteria for the recruitment of senior psychologists. I am not clear at this point whether this particular group has reported, whether its report has been acted upon or whether its report seeks to remove what many within the educational psychologist profession would regard as an artificial differentiation between the categories of psychologists that operate within the health service. While I acknowledge this may be at a slight tangent from the issues under discussion with regard to this particular health Bill, the Minister of State might be in a position, either now or at some later stage, to address the concerns of this particular group, which I consider to be legitimate and which have not been addressed heretofore.

See this speech in context