Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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335. To ask the Minister for Health when the provisions of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 will be made fully applicable to all counsellors including abortion counsellors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53592/17]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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336. To ask the Minister for Health if the two year transition period which has applied to other professions under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 will apply to counsellors; his plans to shorten or eliminate this transition period on the grounds of urgency or on other grounds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53593/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 335 and 336 together.

Draft Regulations to designate the professions of counsellor and psychotherapist under the Health and Social Care Professional Act 2005 and to establish a registration board for both professions have been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. Resolutions to approve the draft regulations have also been submitted to each House for consideration. Subject to the approval of the Houses, the next steps will be to make the regulations and appoint the 13 members of the registration board following the submission of suitable candidates for my consideration by the Public Appointments Service.

When the registration board has been established and its members appointed early next year its primary tasks will be to commence drafting the various bye-laws to allow it to establish its registers and to advise the Health and Social Care Professional Council and my Department on some of the outstanding issues to be decided. These include the professional titles to be protected by regulation under the Act and the qualifications that ought to be required of existing practitioners in order to register. Crisis pregnancy counselling (other than that provided by doctors, nurses and social workers) will be taken into consideration in this context.

Following the opening of a there is a two-year transitional period to allow existing practitioners time to apply for registration and satisfy the that they meet the requirements for the profession. There are no plans to shorten the two year transitional period in the case of the profession of counsellor.