Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Having watched the "RTÉ Investigates" programme last night, I had intended raising the issue but my colleague, Senator Currie, did so competently and eloquently. All I can say in that regard is that I fully agree with her. It is such a serious matter to have rogue practitioners in psychology, above all disciplines. We do not need them in any discipline but in psychology it is a horror given the vulnerability of the clientele and all that goes with that. The programme was excellent and conveyed the reality of this issue.

This raises another question. I am proud of how this Government dealt with Covid-19 and Brexit. We are taking on housing and will do more in the future. However, we also have to take on as a priority the whole question of waiting lists for the whole range of assessments for autism and for psychological services, including educational psychologists and so forth. While the programme rightly identified the rogue issue, the elephant in the room is that we have these waiting lists. Vulnerable people can be preyed on in those conditions. There has to be an all-out Government assault on waiting lists soon. Thankfully, as a country we are in a position to do that, in many respects due to good management in the past. We need to do it as a priority.

Two points came out of the programme. First, the rogue psychologists have to be rooted out and CORU has to speed up the entire operation and be assisted to do that. Second, there should be no waiting lists beyond a couple of months so that this question does not arise in the first place and there are no vulnerable people to prey on.