Dr. Niall Pender:

Neuropsychologists are specialists. They include clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists and they are all highly trained. There are not many of us and not many are funded. Therefore, access is quite poor around the country. Many of the acute hospitals in Dublin now have at least one neurological psychologist, but that is well below the internationally recommended levels for access. Neuropsychologists are involved in the identification and treatment of the cognitive, behavioural and emotional consequences of brain injuries. Their work includes identifying people with pre-existing conditions, such as epilepsy, who may go on to have surgery. They also work post-operatively with people who have had a stroke or head injury. There are people being discharged into the community with significant cognitive problems to do with memory, attention and language, but they do not even realise themselves what those problems are. They are struggling even to make sense of these weird and unusual symptoms and there is nobody there to tell them what they are. There is a huge lack of provision, depending on where people are in the country. In some places, they might get access. In many other places, there is no access at all.