Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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350. To ask the Minister for Health her views on the planned CORU revised standards of proficiency for the psychotherapy profession; if she will meet with an organisation (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [64143/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, CORU is Ireland’s multi-profession health and social care regulator. With extensive experience in introducing regulation to health and social care professions for the first time, CORU has already established twelve registers for a range of professions.

CORU’s work ensures the protection of the public by regulating the work of over 30,000 health and social care professionals.

Counsellors and psychotherapists perform a vital role, providing therapeutic care to often vulnerable people. Regulation is being introduced to these professions to protect the public, ensuring that care provided is of a consistently high standard and always by suitably qualified individuals.

The Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board (CPRB) was established in 2019 and since that time has been working to progress regulation of both professions.

The CPRB undertook extensive research, analysis, and public consultation to introduce regulation of each profession for the first time. The public consultation process received over 700 submissions, including from professional bodies. This comprehensive process recognised the differences in scope and complexity of practice between the two professions and ensures that the threshold standards and qualification levels set for each accurately reflect the competencies required for safe and effective practice, while strengthening public protection.

In line with the CPRB’s statutory responsibility to assess, balance and consider all perspectives before reaching a final evidence-based decision, the Board carefully considered every submission received and determined the final Standards and Criteria that now underpin entry to the registers for both counsellors and psychotherapists, including those received from professional bodies. This open, structured and inclusive process demonstrates CORU’s clear commitment to transparency, accountability, evidence-based decision-making, and, above all, the protection of the public.

I requested officials from my Department to meet with the Irish Council for Psychotherapy, which they did on 27th August.

CORU also met with this organisation on 14th July and again on 5th November.

I am confident that CORU’s work will bring clear benefits for public protection. The framework has been designed to strengthen standards of practice while ensuring that training pathways and workforce supply are not adversely affected.

I am assured that CORU will continue to engage closely with stakeholders, including professional bodies as the regulatory process advances, keeping public protection at the centre of this work.

I am eager to see this work progressed so that this very important profession is finally regulated, in the interest of public protection.