Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection

Special Educational Needs Provision: National Council for Special Education and Health Service Executive

2:15 pm

Mr. Pat Healy:

The Government invested considerably in the university system to develop posts. That is working well. I was mentioning earlier that we are trying to time implementation to coincide with the emergence of graduates. That should assist. There can be particular pockets in the country. I know from a previous role as a regional director in the south that we always experienced difficulty in recruiting psychologists. This was because of the scale of numbers and the fact that other parts of the country were regarded as more attractive. These areas had more candidates. Once one went below a particular threshold, it was more difficult to encourage people to come in one's direction. We try to develop creative ways to attract staff. Challenges can arise, but, broadly, we are training, through the universities, etc. The important thing is to have the posts into which to put the graduates.

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