Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill and outline some of my reservations about it. I hope they will be taken up on Committee Stage by way of amendment.

My essential reservation about the Bill is that it makes more than minor technical amendments to the relevant Act, particularly in its protection of the title of "physical therapist". I have discussed this issue with chartered physiotherapists and others in the medical and health profession and they share these concerns. Physiotherapists are trained in a medical system and share lectures with students of pharmacy, medicine, occupational therapy, speech therapy, radiology and so on. They also receive compulsory training in hospital settings as part of multidisciplinary teams, which leads to an holistic understanding of the whole self. This training is even more important in the isolated private setting in which we have a duty to protect the public. The networks of cross-disciplinary knowledge built mean that red flags are picked up and that there is an appropriate system for referral to other medical professionals. For example, chartered physiotherapists fast-track referrals to GPs and oncologists where there is a need to do so.

There is most certainly a role for physical therapists in the health system, but there needs to be a clear division in the interests of public health and safety between physical therapy and physiotherapy. None of us would like to hear that our dentist was regulated without proper and appropriate qualifications because of a dubious amnesty. We cannot have a dilution of services or the standards of appropriately trained professionals. We have a duty of care to ensure the best possible professionals are available with appropriate training and education for all in the health care system.

I want to deal with some of the specific issues outlined by my colleague, Deputy Mary Butler. The Bill provides for access to the register for persons without a qualification. This is a huge public protection issue as anybody calling himself or herself a physiotherapist or a physical therapist without a qualification can apply to join the register. The only clinical requirement is to pass an assessment of competence. This certainly exposes the public to huge risk. We believe the assessment of professional competence will be set at the standard of an IPTAS qualification, not a physiotherapy qualification, the designated profession in this case. The assessment of competence should absolutely be based on the physiotherapist qualification, not a lower one. It is imperative that all registrants have the same level of professional competency to ensure protection of the public.

There is a loophole in the Bill in that access for those who have never practised the profession does not have a time limit, an issue which needs to be addressed. In addition, the Bill does not include the decision that registrants shall be required to confine their practice to musculoskeletal therapy. There is a requirement to include this issue, purely to safeguard the public, which is at the forefront of the issues we are raising.

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