Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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15. To ask the Minister for Health the progress that has been made by his Department, following his comments on 17 November 2016, to give consideration to ways of better protecting the public from certain crisis pregnancy agencies or counsellors that are providing information (details supplied); the resources that have been made available by his Department to do this; the status of legislation to tackle the issue of rogue crisis pregnancy agencies; the status of his Department's review of the Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12348/17]

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Last November, the Minister said he had asked his officials to give timely consideration to ways of better protecting the public from certain crisis pregnancy agencies or counsellors providing information that is neither truthful nor objective. I seek an update on that commitment.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for this question about an important issue which we debated in this House when Deputy Howlin tabled a Bill on this matter that received almost unanimous support. He wanted to make sure that women with crisis pregnancies received accurate and truthful information. We were all appalled by the reporting of Ellen Coyne at the time showing that was not the case and that there were rogue agencies in operation. The regulation of a new profession under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005, involves a consultation process and the making of a number of statutory instruments by the Minister for Health and by the relevant registration board.

In September of last year, the Department engaged, at my instruction, in a formal consultation process in which interested persons and organisations were invited to formally submit their views on how the statutory regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists should proceed. A total of 84 submissions was received by the closing date of 30 November 2016.

I am undertaking an examination of these submissions which will inform the approach to be adopted in progressing the statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors. I envisage that the next steps in the statutory regulation of the profession or professions under the Act will commence in the coming months with the submission of draft designation regulations to the Houses of the Oireachtas.

As the Deputy is aware, the Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995 prescribes the conditions for making available information to pregnant women and the public about services lawfully available outside the State for the termination of pregnancies. During the Second Stage debate on the Health and Social Care Professionals (Amendment) Bill 2016, I undertook to have this Act reviewed by my Department to establish if its provisions need to be strengthened. This review is ongoing. For example, subject to the views of the Attorney General, it may be possible to amend this Act, and this is my gut feeling on the issue, to ensure that only registered professionals provide services under the Act. This might be feasible, as expected, if it is decided to proceed with the statutory regulation of counsellors. One goes hand in hand with the other.

Finally, the HSE has developed a quality framework for State-funded crisis pregnancy services. Under the crisis pregnancy programme, 16 such services are funded by the HSE and each is requested to comply with this framework under the terms of its service level agreement. Specifically on that Bill, engagement continues today between Deputy Howlin's advisers and departmental officials on how best to progress it.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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In the glare of the media spotlight the Minister was very quick to say that the women of Ireland deserved better. Today is International Women's Day and as has happened many of the issues relating to women I have raised today, the Minister says the women of Ireland might deserve better but they can wait. It is four months since the commitment was made to conduct the review. With the greatest of respect to the Minister's officials, all of whom I know are busy, this is a very serious issue. There are counselling agencies that offer good and appropriate advice to pregnant women but others do not. These agencies strategically target vulnerable women and need to be stopped. I agree with the Minister that the women of Ireland deserve better but they do not deserve to wait. They deserve better and they deserve it quickly.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Of course they do and that is why I am progressing this and why I accepted Deputy Howlin's Bill on Second Stage and why I have initiated the public consultation on regulation of counsellors or psychotherapists. I am very clear that we absolutely should. As a result of that consultation I have received 84 submissions which are being reviewed in the Department as we speak and I have already told the Deputy that I expect to be in a position to bring draft designation regulations to the Houses of the Oireachtas within the next couple of months to move on in respect of this.

One would imagine that, subject to the advice of the Attorney General, the most appropriate way to amend the Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995 to make sure women have the protections the Deputy and I want them to have would be to make sure the information could be provided only by registered professionals. The registration has to be set up and that is what I am doing with the regulations and then the Act has to be amended.

Deputy Howlin's Bill is on Committee Stage. It is a matter for the Select Committee on Health and Deputy Howlin to decide when to move on that. I appreciate the fact that Deputy Howlin is doing that cognisant of the work going on in my Department and is engaging with the Department on the matter today.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Four months ago the Minister said he would ask his officials to give timely consideration to ways of better protecting the public from certain crisis pregnancy agencies or counsellors that are providing information that is neither truthful nor objective.

Maybe the Minister and I have different definitions of what we might consider timely. These agencies operate less than 1 km from where we stand and are offering terrified women incorrect, inaccurate and sometimes dangerous advice. I would have thought that timely consideration of a serious issue such as this would have come to some class of a conclusion before now, yet the Minister says it will be done in a couple of months. I put that in the same category as "timely". It is not a definitive framework.

At the time, in the glare of the media publicity and on the back of the good work done by Ellen Coyne everybody expressed outrage yet here we are four months on from this revelation, ten years on from the revelation in Hot Press and these agencies are operating, preying on vulnerable women and young girls and we need to take serious action on this, not timely consideration or in a couple of months, in a while or women have to wait yet again, we need it now.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy's remark about the glare of media publicity is unfortunate. It attempts to divide and be partisan about an issue on which I do not think anyone in this House is partisan. No human being could but have been appalled-----

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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That was the context of the Minister's remarks.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I would appreciate if the Deputy did not conflate the timing taken to formulate regulations and pass legislation through these Houses, in which the Deputy and her party have a role to play, with people's genuine responses to sickening behaviour. That is quite an important point.

The Deputy is making it sound like nothing has happened, for whatever reasons she wishes. If she actually listened to my answer, which I am sure she did-----

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I did.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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-----the HSE now funds 16 crisis pregnancy agencies and has put in place a framework to protect women and it is a condition of that funding that the framework is adhered to. The Deputy refers to ten years since the Hot Press revelation. I have been in office for ten months and the consultation is done. I will bring regulation to the House within months. We are going to move on this. The Deputy knows the process very well in respect of regulations, the Attorney General's advice and the legislative process. We will get this done and after decades or more of women waiting, they will not wait much longer.