Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chair for her assistance and apologise to Deputies if there is a lack of clarity on my part. My contribution will relate to Parts 4 and 5, which will amend the Health Acts that make reference to health and social care professions, as well as the Mental Health Act 2001.

In this emergency, additional healthcare staff will be required to cope with staff illness and an increase in the numbers of patients. The national action plan published by the Government on 16 March identified the need to facilitate the recruitment of retired health sector workers, some of whom are members of professions subject to regulation under the auspices of statutory independent regulatory authorities, namely, the Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Board, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, CORU, and the Dental Council. Some professionals have indicated a willingness to rejoin the health sector during this emergency. In an effort to maximise the number of people being restored to the register, consideration must be given to what barriers exist to their speedy and easy restoration, and how they might be removed or mitigated against. In a review of the legal impediments to prompt restoration, barriers to quick restoration were identified. For example, in the case of CORU, the restoration process can be lengthy, depending on whether the person had paid a fee to leave the register or had allowed his or her registration to lapse. Restoring a nurse, for instance, can take a long time if documentation is incomplete or if it is awaited from another country where he or she has engaged in practice. In light of this, it was decided to amend the five regulatory Acts to create a specific Covid-19 temporary restoration that will sit apart from the normal restoration process and will provide such practitioners with a simpler registration process, with a clear-cut route for removal from the register if appropriate and necessary.

The Covid-19 application provisions for restoration under the five Acts have the following common features. They apply to previous registrants, applicants must be persons of good standing in their practice here, and they will be subject to temporary registration that will cease on 31 July or on a different date by order of the Minister for Health. The Bill makes clear that registration under this provision will not attract the payment of any fee. Applicants will be subject to the normal processes of complaint in respect of fitness to practise. In the unlikely but nevertheless possible event that some returnees may decide to return to work on a more permanent basis, persons under this provision can apply in parallel for full registration. In this regard, the temporary registration will end under the various Acts by 31 July this year or by order of the Minister for Health to be laid before the Houses in the normal way. Finally, there is temporary modification of section 105 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. Under this provision, a person who is not a registered medical practitioner who is suspected of practising medicine may be investigated by the Medical Council and the findings given to An Garda Síochána.

As it is important to provide the HSE with as much flexibility as possible, it may be necessary to redeploy staff and to assign tasks outside their usual roles. In this regard, a further provision relevant to all regulators, including the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council, PHECC, amends temporarily section 105 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 to provide clarity to registrants that, where they are practising medicine and where they do so under the direction and control of, or in accordance with a direction in writing from, a registered medical practitioner, they are not practising medicine for the purposes of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. In this regard, such persons will, of course, be mindful of their skills and mindful to act at all times in the best interests of patients. It is worth noting that regulators have already put in place additional resources and designed IT systems that would enable streamlined fast-track restoration of practitioners. Much good work has already been done in terms of restoring persons to the register. It is hoped these provisions will further assist regulators in effecting these restorations speedily.

I can see that amendments have been put down which seek to facilitate Covid-19-specific registration processes for people who have not worked in Ireland before. In this regard, there is already a provision within the various Acts for dealing with applications for first-time registrants. It is simply too high a risk to circumvent the important checks that are and must be applied to people who have never worked in Ireland before.

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