Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I very much welcome the Bill. It sets out a number of amendments to the principal Act, namely, to sections 9, 28, 28A, 31, 38, 91 and 91A. It sets out a number of amendments that are required, and we are talking about 14 different professions here. My understanding is, as the Minister of State said, that for 11 of the professions the boards are up and running. The Bill deals with a broad range of people across the health care sector. This is important because normally when we talk about the health care sector, we tend to focus on doctors and nurses, but a huge range of people provide very well-developed services. It is important, therefore, that they too are regulated to ensure standards are maintained in those services.

The Minister of State has already set out in quite some detail the reasons for the amendments and the introduction of the Bill. In fairness, much work has been done by all the people involved in these professions to ensure we get broad agreement. I know the issue regarding physiotherapists and physical therapists has taken quite some time to resolve, but agreement has been reached, which is a welcome development. The provision of health care without regulation is an issue I have raised in this House previously. I refer to people offering to provide medical scans without any regulation. I am not clear whether many of those providing that service have adequate insurance.

When it comes to medical care, there is a need to protect the public. It is interesting how we have allowed certain things to develop over the years without regulation. For instance, it was 2012 when I introduced a Private Members' Bill into this House in this regard. One cannot drive a car without insurance, and I could not practise as a solicitor without insurance, but there was no legal requirement for one's local GP to have professional indemnity insurance. A Bill similar to mine had been introduced in 2009 by Senator James Reilly, who was then the Opposition spokesperson on health, and it is only in the past few weeks that such a regulation, the requirement for all medical practitioners to have professional indemnity insurance, has been in place. Like that area, much of the area relating to this Bill has been left unregulated in real terms for a long period. It is important there is proper regulation and adjudication in ensuring that the general public who are getting services are getting them from people who are qualified and have the training and skills to provide the care they need. The structure we are now setting up ensures there are not only standards, an education process and a qualification process, but also a supervisory process, which is extremely important.

As I said, quite an extensive area is covered by 14 professions. It is fantastic that we have now made progress on this and it is important that the Bill goes through to the next Stage and all of the procedures we need to put in place are put in place at an early date and there is proper regulation so that if a member of the public feels he or she did not get the service he or she sought, there is a mechanism for dealing with that, which is extremely important as well. Again, I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward the Bill and for coming to an agreement with the physical therapists and physiotherapists. I thank all the people involved, including the Department officials, for the work done and I look forward to seeing the Bill pass into law in a very short period.