Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Howlin and the other speakers for their contributions on this important issue. As the Minister, Deputy Harris, outlined, the Government is supporting the reading of the Bill for a second time but cautioning the House that much work will have to be done before it proceeds further. The Minister and the Government fully subscribe to the objective of the Bill, which is to protect the public. The Minister is committed to working with Deputy Howlin and other Members to arrive at more workable solutions to ensure that truthful and objective information is made available to all women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

We all agree that a woman seeking advice on a crisis pregnancy must be provided with truthful and objective information, and that it is appropriate that the State facilitates its provision. Women can currently seek such information in the context of free and non-judgmental counselling through Positive Options, the crisis pregnancy service that is funded and overseen by the Health Service Executive. People with concerns about the veracity with which they have been dealt with by service providers can have their concerns investigated by the Garda under the Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995, but there may be a need to strengthen these provisions and to create greater awareness of this legislation. Deputy Coppinger referred to this and we can establish if complaints have been made to An Garda Síochána through the Department of Justice and Equality. The Minister has asked the Department to commence a review of the Act, as he announced this evening.

The bringing of counsellors within the ambit of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 will also provide better protection of the public and should go a long way towards addressing Deputy Howlin’s genuine concerns. The Act provides that only registrants are entitled to use the protected title. A person who is not registered and who uses a title protected under the Act would be guilty of an offence and would be liable on prosecution to a class A fine or up to six months in prison or both. Registrants are also subject to the Act's fitness to practice regime. This allows for complaints about the conduct or competence of registrants to be investigated. Disciplinary sanctions, where complaints are substantiated, up to and including cancellation of registration, may be imposed. The regime is similar to that applicable to medical practitioners, nurses and midwives. The Minister's proposals to regulate counsellors under the Act are currently out for public consultation and he hopes to be in a position to submit draft regulations to this House next year.

While I support the Bill before the House, a particular concern we have with it is that it would treat pregnancy counsellors separately from counsellors generally and would regulate them differently from the fourteen other professions currently designated under the Act. This in turn would pose difficulties for the operation of the 2005 Act into the future. It is the Minister's intention to make progress through utilising both the forthcoming registration of counsellors and the existing regulation of information Act 1995 to result in a more workable solution to the challenge of ensuring that truthful and objective information is made available to all women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

For these reasons, I support the Minister's proposal that the Bill be read a second time but I join him in pointing to the additional work that will be required before the Bill proceeds further.

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