Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

196. To ask the Minister for Health when draft designation regulations to regulate counsellors and psychotherapists under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act will be brought before the Houses of the Oireachtas for approval. [2244/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Psychotherapists and counsellors are not currently regulated under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. However, the Act provides that the Minister 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.

The regulation of a new profession under the Act involves a consultation process and the making of a number of statutory instruments by the Minister for Health and by the relevant registration board.

My Department has engaged in a consultation process in which interested persons and organisations were invited to formally submit their views on how the statutory regulation of the profession(s) should proceed. A total of 84 submissions were received on foot of the consultation process which concluded on 30th November 2016.

I am undertaking an examination of these submissions which will inform the approach to be adopted in progressing the statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors.

I envisage that the next steps in the statutory regulation of the profession(s) under the Act will commence in the coming months with the submission of draft designation regulations to the Houses of the Oireachtas.