Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. I will get straight into it as I want to ask as many questions as possible. There are 179 whole-time equivalent posts in NEPS. If there are 3,000 primary schools and more than 700 post-primary schools, it seems this would be an incredible workload. How does that compare with other jurisdictions with education psychologists? Ms Tansey indicated that 179 NEPS psychologists dealt with 8,309 children, which is an incredible workload. Ms Lorraine Dempsey of the Special Needs Parents Association was yesterday before the education committee of which I am a member. She was critical of the insufficient number of education psychologists available. I am just curious about how we compare with other jurisdictions. What is the maximum and minimum number of schools assigned to a NEPS psychologist? Is there a cut-off point?

The Action Plan for Education 2016-2019 indicated that 65 psychologists would be recruited in the first quarter of 2017, with the aim of bringing the total to 238. Since 2016, a total of 16 whole-time positions have been recruited when resignations and retirements are taken into account. The 2018 plan has a target for ten to be recruited, which would bring the total to 189. Where do the other posts come from? Will Ms Tansey outline the recruitment process for a NEPs psychologist? Is it time consuming? How many are there to be recruited? She mentioned the intention to recruit 15 psychologists this year. On 12 June, In reply to a parliamentary question the Minister indicated the intention was to recruit ten psychologists. Ms Tansey mentioned that NEPS psychologists do not generally use talk therapy. Does that mean some do and some do not? Is talk therapy valued and should it be introduced to assist students? Is there a plan to introduce it via NEPS or are the qualifications not there? I am wondering what are the obstacles.

The Irish Council for Psychotherapy mentioned the snapshot of the national experience. It did not look good in any way. One person in particular was accepted for interview, placed on a panel but received no further contact. Do we know how long this person was waiting or is the person still waiting? Is this reflective of a wider experience? Do many people face such significant delays between the interview and hiring? What effect does it have on staffing if a person is put on a panel but never hears from anyone else again? What are the dangers for our most vulnerable people of not having proper regulation for psychotherapists and counsellors? Are they being exploited, even in a financial sense?

Ms O'Flaherty referred to a framework document in it there is a breakdown of several key health areas, such as weight, smoking, alcohol and well-being. Each is broken down under headings that include a Healthy Ireland indicator description, baseline indicators, targets or sources for development of potential indicators. Of the seven health areas listed, well-being is the only one that has no targets or sources for development of potential indicators. Why is that the case?

I fully agree with Dr. Barry that we are not doing enough with the toolbox of skills to cope in a time of crisis. It is something we dealt with on the education committee. There was mention of emotional resilience skills for children so how could they be realised best in schools? Would it be a whole-school approach or should there be specific teachers? Do we need to put this on the teacher training course? There is anxiety in young students. Should we introduce mindfulness and how could it be done? Should we be careful that a teacher, even with the best intentions, could do something dangerous? What training exists? I presume the resilience and mindfulness education would start from primary school.