Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate where Deputy Crowe is coming from. With the work of our own NEPS team we have been fortunate enough to have additional funding to ensure additional NEPS psychologists are being employed. In the last year an additional 18 have been taken on. In the coming months of February and March interviews are taking place for another tranche of NEPS psychologists. With regard to the flow of education psychologists coming forward, a bursary is provided by the Department. There were 15 graduates last summer from that programme. The bursary is worth about €30,000 to the students. During the summer 15 came forward, ten of whom are currently employed by NEPS, and I believe the other five are on various panels.

I hear what the Deputy is saying. All additional capacity is welcome. It is a field in which it is difficult to get people, hence our work with the bursaries. We also had the scaffold scheme whereby private assessments can take place and are funded. We are very happy to look at a wide variety of measures but the chief thing is getting a sufficiency of undergraduates who are prepared to take the course. It has been successful, from our point of view, to provide the bursaries. We are competing with other Departments in the whole psychology area but this has been a new step forward by the Department, which has been a good one. It is positive to be able to say that interviews are also taking place in February and March for additional posts.