Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I accept that. It is an internal system of registration. They made the point that business is good and that in 15 years in operation no negligence case has been taken against them. As far as I know the Minister did not dispute this point the last day, which speaks for itself. The fact that business is good shows there is a need for it. People are going back to them for treatment. A physiotherapist might not work for some people and a physical therapist might not work for others. Medicine is a funny game as we all know.

I accept the point made by Senator Henry on jurisdiction. Ideally it would be preferable to have uniformity on terms. As I said, it is regrettable that we cannot turn the clock back 15 years to avoid this problem. Unfortunately, that is not possible. Physiotherapists should have been more active at that time. We might not be discussing the issue of the dual titles of physical therapist and physiotherapist if they had done so. At this stage we could not allow physiotherapists to have sole rights over the term "physical therapist" because that would prevent physical therapists from using it, which would be devastating for their profession.