Seanad debates

Wednesday, 18 December 2019

Regulated Professions (Health and Social Care) (Amendment) Bill 2019: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Robbie GallagherRobbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our friends to the Gallery this afternoon. I wish to put on the record that Fianna Fáil was supportive of the pharmaceutical assistants. I know other members of our party have been in contact with me on the matter. Senator Davitt and yourself, Acting Chairman, were keen to ensure that we supported the amendment.

I compliment Senator Bacik on her contribution and on her work in putting down this amendment. She eloquently laid out all our thoughts on this particular issue.

I was scratching my head in many ways when trying to see where this surfaced from and what the motivation behind it was. As outlined previously, I understand only 300 people are involved throughout the entire country. As someone else said, most of them are female. It was disappointing for them to think that in the autumn of their careers their professionalism would be down-graded by this regulation. I am delighted that common sense has prevailed and that the Minister is now accepting the amendment. I am happy about it and I look forward to it passing on to the next stage.

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