Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Many of us watched the RTÉ programme that was screened on Monday night on the fact that psychology services in Ireland are not regulated. No State regulations exist, so anyone can set themselves up with fake documentation and claim to be a psychologist. The programme showed that this could be done very easily. We know of at least one person who did this.

This is very concerning because we have 12,000 children on a waiting list for assessment of need, and we have 4,300 children waiting to see a psychologist. The HSE is failing in its duty, as is the Department of Health, to provide those services in the public sector, which all of those children are entitled to. This leaves the system open to charlatans taking advantage of vulnerable children, vulnerable adults and their families, many of whom are at their wits' end because they cannot get the services that their child deserves and needs.

Children are suffering as a result and untold damage is being done. The waiting list and the inaction of the HSE over so many years are leaving the system open to anybody to claim to be a psychologist within the private sector, and that is adding insult to injury. Families should not be forced to go public, bare their souls and tell their stories but they feel they have no other way of getting the services their children need. That is not fair.

There are two issues, the first of which relates to the failure of the Government to regulate psychologists properly within the private sector. The Psychologists Registration Board was established five years ago and still has not determined what the regulations should be. Obviously, CORU cannot regulate until that work has been done by the board. The second issue relates to the significant failure by the HSE to provide the services the children require. Were the HSE doing its job properly and providing the services children need for both assessments of need and the follow-up interventions, parents would not be forced down the road of seeking private assessment and private intervention and would not face the possibility of being defrauded by someone posing as a psychologist.

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