I thank the Acting Chairman and Senator O'Loughlin for the warm wishes extended to me. I thank Senator O'Loughlin for raising the issue of the opening of a branch of Jigsaw, the mental health organisation, in Newbridge, County Kildare. She is quite right that I have heard her talk about this over many years; it is not something I have heard for the first time today. As we all know, Jigsaw is an absolutely fantastic organisation. It has 12 sites nationwide, all of which provide brief intervention and support to youn…

The Senator will appreciate that the HSE has statutory responsibility for the planning and delivery of health and personal social services at local level. The HSE, as is reflected in its annual service plan, strives to deliver services in the best possible manner. Currently, Jigsaw has 66% coverage throughout the country but I would love to see a situation where we have 100% coverage as this is so important. Coupled with this, I have met a lot of youth groups recently. The Senator mentioned the Connecting for Life …

Yes.

I thank the Senator for his kind words of welcome to this House. I am representing the Minister for Education and Skills. She was not in a position to attend so asked me to take this Commencement debate, which I am happy to do. I spoke to her briefly and she informed me that she is very much aware of all of the work that the Senator has done to date to progress the extension at Ballybay Community College, working with Councillor Coyle. As the Senator said, the people of Ballybay are completely behind the project. I…

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. I assure the House that the CMETB is fully committed to providing this critical school accommodation. I also assure the House that it will be supported by the Department in doing so, particularly at the key stages in the process. The Department also remains fully committed to progressing the project in that context. The Senator is quite right when he mentioned the board of management, the principal of the school, all of the staff, the community and local politicians incl…

I thank the Senator for posing this question. It is a very important question and clarity is needed on it. I am representing the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection who is not available to take the question. I agree with the Senator that there has been a large degree of confusion and I hope that I can bring clarity to the situation. As we all know, illness benefit is a short-term payment made to insured people who are unable to work due to illness. This payment is funded by the Social Insurance Fu…

As I said, payment is made where a medical practitioner advises a person to remain away from work. It is clear then that a person needs to be certified by a medical practitioner to avail of the two weeks' enhanced Covid payment. As of 25 September 2020, 55,000 claims had been received since March 2020. Almost 52,000 people have received an enhanced illness benefit payment, the vast majority on the basis that they were a probable risk of infection rather than having been diagnosed with Covid-19. Of those who made cl…

I thank Deputies O'Rourke, Wynne and Cullinane for raising this really serious issue. I was under the impression that I was coming to the House to discuss issues concerning visitations to nursing homes, but I will address both issues. This was raised in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago by a Sinn Féin Deputy from Cork. I know it is a very challenging issue. I am a mother of three and I brought either my mother or my husband to every single appointment I ever had when I was pregnant. I want to congratulate Deputy O'Rou…

The Covid-19 guidance on visitations to residential care facilities has been developed and is reviewed and revised on an ongoing basis in consultation with key national stakeholders. This is an important document that provides a pathway for safe visiting. Any updates are expected to encompass recent developments in the response. As I stated, however, the existing guidance is not without consideration for visiting on compassionate grounds. That is allowed. It behoves all providers of long-term residential care to ba…

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following: “Dáil Éireann resolves that the Health (Amendment) (Professional Home Care) Bill 2020 be deemed to be read a second time this day twelve months, in order to allow the Minister for Health to further consider some of the issues with the Bill, and having regard to the fact that the Minister for Health is already in the process of developing a comprehensive regulatory framework to regulate home support services.” I am grateful for th…

I wish to thank all the Deputies who contributed to this important debate in the House. Once again I would like to thank Deputies Burke and Higgins for bringing forward this Private Members' Bill. The debate this evening has been very useful and the early discussion of the issues concerned will be of great benefit as my Department continues to progress proposals to regulate the home support sector. I thank all of the Deputies for their contributions in what is known as the graveyard shift, late on a Thursday evenin…

In line with a signal given on Committee Stage that it might be necessary to introduce correcting amendments on Report Stage, a number of amendments to make typographical changes to sections relating to the Dentists Act, the Health and Social Care Professionals Act, the Pharmacy Act and the Medical Practitioners Act are required. These amendments can be explained under three headings. First, the correcting of a minor drafting error that relates to the internal numbering of section 71A of the Medical Practitioners A…

I thank Senators for their kind words. To address Senator Bacik's points, I worked closely with pharmaceutical assistants in Waterford. I am very aware of what the Senator is speaking about. I recognise that in years to come, many of these pharmaceutical assistants will retire, as the last one came into this profession in 1986. One of the first questions I asked my officials this morning was where we were on this situation. Many pharmacies have found circumstances challenging in the past six months and pharmaceutic…

Absolutely.

The amendment relates to section 36 of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act, which requires registration boards to establish a register of members of that profession as soon as is practicable after the registration board's establishment. The effect of the amendment would be to require registers to open within a year of the establishment of a board or, where boards have been established, within a year of the enactment of the Bill, even where the work necessary to open the register safely is not complete. Reg…

Twelve registration boards have been established to date, and eight of these have opened registers incorporating ten professions. The remaining four boards are working towards the opening of the registers for an additional five professions. I fully appreciate that some practitioners and service users may be frustrated that it is taking longer than expected for some registers to open. It should be appreciated, however, that when applying a statutory regulation to a profession, there is only one opportunity to have t…

These amendments are primarily consequent on an amendment made on Committee Stage in the Dáil. In 2017, the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 was amended to provide that persons who were awarded certain specified qualifications after 1 January 2013 could apply for registration to the Physiotherapists Registration Board. It provided a two-year grandparenting window during which appropriately qualified persons, including persons awarded the qualification before 1 January 2013, could seek registration unde…

I propose to take amendments Nos. 19 to 21, inclusive, and amendments Nos. 31 to 33, inclusive, together. The Bill as passed by the Dáil amended the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 and the Nurses and Midwives Act 2011 to provide that subcommittees of the preliminary proceedings committee, PPC, and the fitness to practise committee, FTPC, are established pursuant to rules. These subcommittees can perform any of the functions of the respective committee as if they are the committee. This was aimed at better utilising …

These amendments, which are technical in nature, do not arise from proceedings on Committee Stage. Sections 88 and 89 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 set out the duties of the Irish Medical Council relating to education and training for medical qualifications. They require the Irish Medical Council to approve programmes of training and the bodies that deliver the training. However, although the Act is explicit that the council may refuse to approve a body as a body that may deliver undergraduate or postgradua…

The Bill amends the Health Act 2004 to give the Minister for Health the power to designate the HSE as the competent authority to compare the equivalents of non-Irish qualifications to the qualifications it sets for certain health professions. These are professions which are not regulated on a statutory basis but are regulated for the purposes of EU Directive No. 2005/36/EC, the professional qualifications directive, for which the Minister is currently the competent authority. On Committee Stage in the Seanad, conce…