Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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671. To ask the Minister for Health the reason for the delay within CORU in relation to the registration for professional counselling and psychotherapy services; and the timeline to complete this process (details supplied). [45237/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As you are aware, regulations to designate counsellors and psychotherapists under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 were made by my predecessor in 2018. The members of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board were appointed in February 2019 and they held their inaugural meeting in May 2019.

The work of a registration board includes consideration of the titles to be protected and the minimum qualifications to be required of existing practitioners and the qualifications that will be required for future graduates. The work of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board is significantly more challenging than it is for registration boards for some of the more established professions owing to the different and complex pathways into these professions, the variety of titles used, and the variety and number of courses and course providers. The work is ongoing.