John Gilroy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The Bill is fairly weighty as it comprises 44 very technical sections. As has been stated, it is a vastly technical piece of work, not least the fact that it attempts to bring together 19 legislative pieces.

By the time the fourth speaker in the House gets his or her turn most of the points will have been raised. Senator Ó Murchú has mentioned and clearly articulated some rather important concerns about Part 3. I would like to hear the Minister of State's response to them and look forward to exploring it in greater detail on Committee Stage.

The Bill is a welcome piece of legislative reform. It points again towards the work being done by Government to bring together legislation in order to be more efficient, coherent and clearer and I commend the Minister of State.

It is very welcome, overdue and a little surprising that it has taken since the 2005 Act until the present to achieve or bring forward proposals to create a statutory protection for professional bodies. The provision is important because it confines practice solely to those persons granted registration under the Act.

That is very important and has some significant implications for other professions and emerging professions in the counselling and therapeutic area, particularly around mental health. We need to be cautious in how we proceed in this. The Minister of State mentioned one or two professions in her opening remarks and I would like her to address the status of progress in some of those other emerging professions.

The Bill provides that newly-designated professions may in future be regulated by existing registration boards. That presents some potential difficulties with how we create the proper match between a profession and its regulatory board. There are some concerns about this and perhaps the Minister of State could say a word or two on it.

I cannot allow the moment to pass without challenging the Minister of State to refute the concern that Senator Ó Murchú raised about the finance-raising element of the Bill. I raise this in the context of the concerns of 89,000 active registered nurses who find themselves facing a 50% increase in their registration fees. It is certainly going to present a problem to us in the new year, when these fees fall due for payment. The representative bodies of the various nursing disciplines have advised their members not to pay. This is going to create an appalling vista in the new year when we may find that we have up to 89,000 active nurses who will cease to be registered. I would like the Minister of State to say a few words of explanation about this. As it happens, I am a psychiatric nurse and am on the active register, although I am not actively working, but I and many of my colleagues are at a loss to justify such a substantial increase in the registration fees.

I will of course be supporting the Bill and commend it to the House.