Psychology profession regulation
Deputy McGrath again raised abuses by unqualified psychologists in court and family settings. The Taoiseach said regulation was desirable but complicated by the lack of common entry standards and pathways.
The programme last night was a huge exposé of how people can call themselves psychologists and practice in the private sector. Barry O'Kelly could interview mothers of children with special needs because they are not bound by the in camera rule unlike mothers whose children are taken into State care by Tusla who are victims of these charlatans operating in the family law courts. We saw how many quack psychologists act as expert witnesses in the family law courts. In 2014, one of them made a report on a family law case on whether a child should be removed from the family or not.
The Taoiseach's colleague, Deputy Bernard Durkan, has raised on several occasions here this issue of these psychologists operating in the family law courts which has led to the arrest and, indeed, imprisonment of some mothers and gardaí removing children from schools on foot of this.
When are we going to deal with this serious problem of quack psychologists? More importantly, evidence given by these people can impact significantly on families and children. It is traumatic and cannot be allowed to continue.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. For obvious reasons, I am not going to comment on evidence given in court, but regarding the issue the Deputy raises on regulating the psychology profession, we agree that it is desirable that it should be regulated. Since CORU was established, we have added a new profession pretty much every year. In the past, very few professions were regulated or titles protected. We have changed that over the course of the past ten years.
Regarding psychology, it is not straightforward. It is complicated by the fact that there is not a common education pathway and there are no common standards for entry into the profession. Public consultation in 2020 revealed significant challenges and no consensus, but the Minister has not given up on this. He wrote to the Psychologists Registration Board on this back in August. It replied to him only last Friday. He is going to consider those views with the goal of advancing this work as soon as it can be done.