Vol. 542 No. 2
329 Mr. Dennehy asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will consider introducing legislation to provide an accreditation process for counsellors and family therapists to ensure that such professional qualified advice is dispensed only by suitably qualified professional people; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24283/01]
I am committed to establishing a system of state registration for all health and social care professionals. To this end, officials from my Department recently met representatives from the Irish Association for Counselling and Therapy – IACT – which operates accreditation schemes for individual counsellors and therapists, counselling and therapy training courses and supervisors, to discuss how the IACT's current system of self-regulation could be strengthened and expanded further in support of movement towards a system of statutory registration.
