Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 provides for the statutory regulation of the 14 professions currently designated under the Act, namely, the professions of clinical biochemist, dietitian, dispensing optician, medical scientist, occupational therapist, optometrist, orthoptist, physiotherapist, podiatrist, psychologist, radiographer, social care worker, social worker and speech and language therapist. Its main aim is to ensure greater patient care and tie all of those professions under one registration body known as CORU. Regulation is primarily by way of the statutory protection of professional titles by confining their use solely to persons granted registration under the Act.

This is a necessary Bill which is essential for the professions in order to ensure only those who are properly qualified and subject to statutory regulations will be allowed to practise the various disciplines outlined in the Bill. There is no doubt but that the public needs this statutory protection and guidance in order to be confident that those from whom they receive treatment are fully competent and accountable within their respective professions.

Before addressing the specifics of the amending Bill, it is appropriate to make a brief comment on the issues surrounding health and social care professionals in Ireland today. The issue of accessibility to the skills, knowledge and care of these professions is central in health and social services. Access to care for many citizens is very difficult and often denied. While citing the above named professions, one cannot fail to acknowledge the dreadful waiting lists on which young children with special needs must linger in order to access speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

The undercapacity of the public system means that parents are forced to spend hundreds of euro every month on private therapy if they want to see their child talk, walk, or have any hope of realising their individual potential. This is wrong. The level of funding and efforts to alleviate this crisis have been grossly inadequate, and I call on the Minister of State and her colleagues to ensure this most urgent matter is addressed in the upcoming budget.

The Bill being debated today seeks to amend the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005, and the main measures provided for in the Bill are to address gaps in respect of appointing professional members to the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, CORU, and to registration boards; to permit a registration board for the designated professions to apply training and education conditions to applicants for registration who have not yet practised their profession; and to provide further conditions for the registration of physiotherapists and physical therapists in the register for physiotherapists. Sinn Féin has concerns about the last of these three main measures of the Bill. This is the proposal to amend the 2005 Act by allowing practitioners to enter the physiotherapy register and continue to use the title "physical therapist" in their practice.

We note arguments made by the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, ISCP, that this timeframed arrangement must be firm and specific. IMPACT, the union which represents social care professionals, has not only voiced concerns but its opposition to the measure. It believes this has the potential to cause confusion for the service users whom the regulations are designed to protect. It argues that if the physiotherapist register allows access to practitioners who do not possess the equivalent qualifications and competencies to practice as a physiotherapist, the rights of the service users, patients, are diminished. Their access to the type of treatment and advice they require is effectively denied if they are unable to make a distinction between the effectiveness and the training of different professional practitioners. There can be no doubt about this, and it is at the core of what I believe is the whole tussle about the proposal involved. Patients should be able to make an informed choice between different service providers, and to do so with support from a clearly regulated system.

In 2005, when the Act was being discussed, I raised serious concerns regarding the establishment of undemocratically accountable quangos. That concern remains today, and our apprehension regarding the lack of accountability has not been abated. It is proposed in sections 3 and 4 of the Bill that the Minister would have the power to appoint professional members to a registration board within CORU during the transitional period of the profession concerned. We believe that this should be done and overseen by the Public Appointments Service. Furthermore, we are disappointed that there is a possibility that the Minister missed a chance to bring counsellors and psychotherapists under a cohesive body with this amending Bill, although I did note the opening contribution of the Minister, Deputy Harris, on Second Stage of this legislation earlier in the week. In November, the Minister said he would do this, following a Private Members' debate on seeking to regulate crisis pregnancy counsellors. The Minister, Deputy Harris, started a consultation on this last August, but, to date, there has been very little information about the outworking of that consultation, until his contribution here on Tuesday.

There are elements to the Bill which we support, such as the amendment to permit a registration board to make by-laws to apply conditions in relation to education and training to applicants for registration who are qualified for a specified period of time but who have never practiced their profession. The Act already has such provisions in respect of applicants who wish to resume the practice of that profession after not having practised the profession for a period specified in the by-laws.

Sinn Féin would commend a revisitation of this amending Bill. We will, of course, table amendments to address all our concerns on Committee Stage. I look forward to hearing further comment from either the Minister of State or the Minister, Deputy Harris, before the conclusion of this Stage of the Bill's passage.

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