Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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358. To ask the Minister for Health the qualifications and work experience required to be considered for social worker employment positions; if he will provide CORU guidelines in respect of attaining work experience; the options available to a person (details supplied) in County Mayo; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38030/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 is to provide for the statutory registration of 12 designated professions by ensuring that only registrants of the relevant Registration Board at CORU are entitled to use the relevant specified title. The profession of social worker is one of the designated professions.

Applicants for registration with a Registration Board must satisfy the conditions set out in Section 38 of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. This includes possession of an approved qualification.An approved qualification includes:

(i) a qualification awarded in the State that has been approved by bye-law or

(ii) a non-Irish qualification that the relevant registration board decides attests to a standard of proficiency corresponding to that attested by the qualifications approved by the bye-law.

In the case of the profession of social worker, the Approved Qualifications for Social Workers bye-law 2011 (S.I. No. 137 of 2011), has approved the following qualifications awarded in the State:

(1) Master of Social Work, University College Cork;

(2) Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work Studies, University College Cork;

(3) Masters of Social Science (Social Work), University College Dublin;

(4) Graduate Diploma in Social Work, University College Dublin;

(5) Masters in Social Work, University of Dublin, Trinity College;

(6) Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work, University of Dublin, Trinity College;

(7) Masters in Social Work, National University of Ireland Galway;

(8) Bachelor of Social Work, University College Cork;

(9) Bachelor in Social Studies, University of Dublin, Trinity College.

Section 38 also provides that a person, who has not practised the designated profession for a specified period of time, must satisfy the relevant registration board that he or she has met criteria and fulfilled conditions specified by bye-law. This is to provide that registrants are up-to-date in their professional practice.

In the case of non-Irish professional qualifications, the processes of the general system of Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications are applied to the qualifications of both EEA and non-EEA nationals. This provides for an assessment on a case-by-case basis of the professional qualifications of an applicant against those required to practise in Ireland (i.e. the qualifications approved under bye law) and for the imposition of a compensation measure -the choice between a Period of Adaptation (a placement of up to three years) or an Aptitude Test if deficits in the applicant’s professional training and post-qualification professional experience are identified.

My Department is advised by CORU that it has no record of communication with the person whose details have been provided. If she wishes to apply for registration, she should contact the Social Workers Registration Board at www.coru.ie, telephone 01 2933160.