The Minister for Health, Simon Harris TD, recently announced the appointment of 13 members to the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board, under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. These appointments took effect on the 25^th of February 2019. The Board will endeavour to safeguard the public by upholding standards of education, conduct, training and competence in the counselling and psychotherapy professions. The Board will also advise the Minister on the protection of professional titles.

CORU (The Health and Social Care Professionals Council) is responsible for arranging the inaugural meeting of the Board which is due to take place shortly. The use of the protected titles such as ‘counsellor’ or ‘psychotherapist’ by an unregistered person will then be an offence that will be prosecuted by a class A fine or imprisonment of up to six months.

The Board will commence working on the initial structure necessary before it is situated to open the register. The creation of this structure is estimated to take up to two years.  After this period, there will be an intervening window that will allow practitioners to register. Practitioners who do not meet the requisite level will be unable to register with CORU.

To read the Department of Health’s brief on this, please see: https://health.gov.ie/blog/press-release/minister-for-health-appoints-the-counsellors-and-psychotherapists-registration-board/