Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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494. To ask the Minister for Health the status of the 2012 review of the academic validation of certain complementary therapies by a company (details supplied) which his Department and the Higher Education and Training Awards Council jointly commissioned; when he will issue his response; the reason he has not done so to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6745/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In September 2010, HETAC (now QQI) and the Department of Health jointly commissioned an International Review of the Academic Validation of Higher Education Programmes in the Complementary Therapies. It focused on five fields, including acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, in jurisdictions which have national education frameworks comparable to the Bologna framework (an EU quality assurance system in education based on learning outcomes) and aimed to identify criteria for the identification of complementary therapies which have the academic and professional maturity to warrant the academic validation of programmes by HETAC/QQI. A draft report was published on the HETAC website in late 2012 to which stakeholders were invited to respond.

The research project was managed by HETAC and my Department participated because, where the academic validation of a training programme is in place, such academic standards may be deemed as the entry level standards to the practice of a profession by systems of either statutory or voluntary regulation.

Since then, the immediate priority of my Department, within the field of professional regulation, has been the full implementation of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 which provides for the regulation of twelve professions already designated under the Act, the recent rationalisation of the Opticians Board into CORU, and to consider the extension of this regulatory regime to counsellors and psychotherapists. This is reflected in Health Priorities for 2015-2017 which is accessible on the Department's website at:.

Accordingly it has not been possible as yet to issue a response to the stakeholder consultation.