Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 June 2023
64. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health when CORU will complete the regulation of allied health and social care professions, such as, but not limited to, psychologists, in line with its statutory obligations. [26722/23]
View answerSet up under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 (as amended) CORU is made up of the Health and Social Care Professionals Council and the Registration Boards. To date, registers have opened for eleven of the seventeen professions designated for regulation by CORU. These include: Dietitians/dieticians; Medical Scientists; Occupational Therapists; Optometrists & Dispensing Opticians; Physiotherapists/Physical Therapists; Podiatrists/Chiropodists; Radiographers; Social Workers and Speech and Language Therapists.
CORU is continuing the substantial work required to open the registers for the remaining designated professions of Social Care Workers; Counsellors and Psychotherapists; Clinical Biochemists; Psychologists and Orthoptists and ensure public protection of service users in Ireland.
The Social Care Workers Register will open on 30th November 2023. This will begin a 2-year transition period for existing practitioners to apply to register with CORU. On 30th November 2025, the title 'Social Care Worker' will become a legally protected title in Ireland.
The Psychologists Registration Board (PSRB) was established in 2017. The work of the PSRB includes consideration of the titles to be protected, the minimum qualifications to be required of existing practitioners, the qualifications that will be required for future graduates, and drafting the Standards of Proficiency and Criteria for Education and Training Programmes. Regulating a new profession is a complex and lengthy process, requiring careful consideration and preparatory work to ensure that it is effective in protecting the public. Psychology has been a uniquely challenging profession to regulate due to the diversity of its specialisms (for example clinical psychology, counselling psychology, occupational and work psychology, sports and performance psychology) and the fact that there is no common education pathway or standards for entry to the profession.
In 2020 a public consultation on the draft Standards of Proficiency and Criteria for Education and Training Programmes developed for the profession revealed a lack of consensus on how to proceed with regulation. Having reached an impasse, CORU wrote to me on behalf of the PSRB seeking guidance on how to proceed. I wrote to CORU in August 2022 requesting the PSRB consider a dual stream and phased approach to regulating the profession, which would allow the PSRB to prioritise regulating psychology specialisms which present the greatest risk to public safety, while simultaneously continuing to work towards the long-term objective of protecting the title of ‘Psychologist’.
CORU wrote to wrote to me on 3 March 2023 with the PSRB’s recommendations on which specialisms should be prioritised for regulation, using an evidence and risk-based methodology. I have accepted the PSRB’s recommendations to prioritise regulation of clinical, counselling, and educational psychology. On 24th April 2023 I wrote to CORU requesting the PSRB to proceed to immediately regulate these three specialisms, while progressing work to protect the title of psychologist in parallel.
Counsellors and Psychotherapists were designated for regulation by my predecessor through S.I. No. 170 in 2018. The Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board (CPRB) was established in 2019. The ongoing work of the CPRB includes consideration of the titles to be protected, the minimum qualifications to be required of existing practitioners, the qualifications that will be required for future graduates, and drafting the Standards of Proficiency and Criteria for Education and Training Programmes. The work of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board, like the PSRB, is significantly more challenging than it is for registration boards of 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.
To date, the following progress has been made by the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board:
• Identification, verification and comprehensive assessment of legacy/historical qualifications to determine if they are appropriate for transitioning existing practitioners onto the respective registers (when open);
• Scoping and research on the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists internationally has been conducted;
• Approval of draft education and training standards which will issue for public consultation in the Autumn of 2023.
Owing to the significant body of preparatory work that these registration boards are required to undertake; it is not possible to say with any degree of accuracy when the professions will be fully regulated. I would anticipate that these registration boards will require several years to complete their work.
Clinical Biochemists and Orthoptists are professions which are designated for regulation by CORU under the Act. However, registration boards have not yet been established for Clinical Biochemists and Orthoptists but their regulation will be progressed in due course.
