Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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291. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to implement a regulatory framework for psychological therapies and to establish a statutory regime for governing of the registration of counsellors and therapists; and the estimated cost of this. [12097/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The regulation of the 14 professions currently designated under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 is being implemented on a phased basis as the registration board and register for each profession is established. Currently 9 of the 14 designated professions have registration boards and registers have been established for 7 of them.

Psychotherapists and counsellors are not currently regulated under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. However, the Act provides that the Minister for Health may, by regulation, designate a health and social care profession not already designated if he or she considers that it is appropriate and in the public interest to do so and if specified criteria have been met.

In accordance with the Act, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council has been consulted on the question of regulating counsellors and psychotherapists. Its detailed report on the matter is being examined carefully in the Department of Health with a view to deciding the next steps in the coming months. These steps will, I envisage, include a wider round of consultation involving the various professional bodies and other interested parties.

While the profession or professions of counsellor and psychotherapist are not specifically designated under the 2005 Act, there are various regulatory controls on many counsellors and psychotherapists operating in Ireland.

The profession of psychologist, for example, is a designated profession under the 2005 Act which means that those psychologists who are counsellors and/or psychotherapists will begin to be regulated when the Psychologists Registration Board, which is due to be established later this year, opens its register.

Psychiatrists, some of whom practice psychotherapy, are regulated under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. Also, counsellors/therapists working in the publicly funded health sector are required to have minimum qualifications set by the Health Service Executive under the Health Act 2004.

While CORU’s annual running costs are currently being mainly funded by the Exchequer, the intention is that CORU’s regulatory system will, in time, be fully self-funding through the annual fees payable by its registrants. This is the case with all other health professional regulators.