Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

I understand there has been an increase in the number of psychologists to be recruited for the National Educational Psychological Service. However, the Deputy is touching on an existing problem and an annual issue whereby schools are allocated a very small number of assessments for a particular child and, therefore, every year there are children who may require NEPS assessments but whose parents or guardians cannot get them prioritised for them. Sometimes they are referred to the HSE to try some way of getting a similar type of assessment done.

As such it is an existing problem insofar as the child is missing out on six months of school during which assessments may normally have been carried out and there may be a delay there to children. It is also important to note that the engagement with children who display additional needs in school in respect of their educational input should not be delayed by waiting on a NEPS assessment. As there is a whole-school model of allocating special educational teaching supports, they no longer need a particular diagnosis to access additional teaching supports; it should be there and upfront. However, in particular where children require a diagnosis for a particular type of support, there are still issues surrounding that, which the education system itself has to work through.

When it comes to providing psychological support to a school, I understand that NEPS has provided a lot of material to schools to provide generalised support to the whole school. The Deputy is bringing up a situation where an individual child requires direct support from NEPS. I believe that capacity is limited due to the overall number. Its model is to provide a whole-school broad-level support, rather that one-to-one support for individual children.