Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Amendment No. 12 would impose an obligation on the Minister to "report to the Oireachtas within one month of the passing of this Act on .... existing Service Level Agreements, Memorandums of Understanding, and partnerships; provisions made to ensure that all Irish citizens have access to a European Health Insurance Card and the benefits which that entails; provisions made to ensure the recognition of professional qualifications in respect of medical professionals and healthcare workers from the United Kingdom where education and training standards are equivalent". The Bill does not contain provisions relating to future recognition of health professional qualifications. However, given its critical importance to the health sector, a number of measures are being advanced to address this. In particular, the UK recently published its draft European qualifications. This UK legislation will enable Irish qualifications to be recognised in the UK. Each of the Irish health professional regulators has third-country recognition routes which apply to qualifications obtained in countries other than Ireland or any other EEA member state. These third-country recognition routes have been considered with the objective of ensuring efficient routes for the recognition of UK qualifications, while ensuring this is done in an objective and non-discriminatory way. The Irish regulators are satisfied that they can continue to recognise UK qualifications within approximately the same timeframes and with approximately the same applications fees, but under a different legal base. A separate Bill - the Regulated Professions (Health and Social Care) (Amendment) Bill 2019, which is included in the Brexit legislative programme - will provide for the use by the Irish regulators of disciplinary information received from third countries, including the UK and EEA member states.

With regard to the maintenance of service level agreements, the Irish and UK Governments are fully committed to continuing existing cross-Border service arrangements. Cross-Border health services such as the cardiology and cancer treatments in Derry and the paediatric cardiology and associated maternity services in Dublin are managed by service level agreements and do not require legislative changes in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Even in a scenario in which the UK leaves the EU without a deal, services like these can be expected to continue. It is important to note that these services are aimed at addressing the particular needs of groups of patients in facilitating geographical access to services and achieving sufficient volumes of activity in the interests of patient safety. The Government is aware and conscious of the concerns of Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland who are likely to lose their entitlement to the European health insurance card, EHIC, after the UK withdraws form the EU. Under the relevant EU regulations, an individual applies for an EHIC in his or her competent member state. The competent member state must state where that person works, makes a social insurance contribution or receives a contributory pension. We are exploring whether it may be possible to establish a route by which the EHIC benefit could be maintained for people living in Northern Ireland. However, this is not necessarily a straightforward matter. The regulation that gives eligibility for an EHIC is an EU regulation. An alternative legal mechanism to enable people living in Northern Ireland to have an EHIC would need to be developed. I expect that it would likely to need the agreement of other member states. The other amendments in this group - Nos. 12 to 14, inclusive - are technical amendments, which would be needed to take account of the renumbering required on foot of amendments Nos. 11 and 12. For the reasons I have outlined, and taking account of the urgent emergency nature of this legislation and the extremely limited timeframe for its enactment, I must decline to accept the amendments in this group.