Ms Martina Mannion:

Apologies, that was another issue the Deputy raised. In the first instance, we have an education system where we are trying to move away from children having to be assessed to get the supports they need. It is based on their needs. As the needs present at any point in time, that is what the system, the Department and the schools need to be in a position to respond to. I will come back to that.

On the recruitment of additional psychologists into the system, there are over 200 psychologists working in NEPS. Last year we got funding to recruit an additional 54 psychologists into NEPS. We had a recruitment campaign over the summer, we have people on panels and we are taking them on now. There is going to be an increased number of educational psychologists in the system. One of the things this has allowed us to do, and we are very pleased about this, is for the first time ever to have educational psychologists available to all of our special schools. Prior to that they had been targeting schools in the mainstream with special classes. Now they are going to be available to all of our special schools. That is important.

When a child is expressing themselves in a way where the behaviours are causing problems resulting in suspensions or expulsions, we want to ensure that in the first instance the child is in the appropriate placement to meet the needs. Being in an inappropriate placement is more likely to lead to challenging behaviours. Increasing the number of special classes and special schools and ensuring children can get the appropriate placement is a very important part of this process. There are a range of people available in the NCSE to support schools where there are behaviours of concern. There are behaviourists and analysts assigned to the NCSE who work alongside the existing speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, SENOs and team leaders. The whole idea there is that schools are getting the benefit of a holistic, full team that is available to schools and that can ideally step in. Since the increase in the number of special schools and classes, the number of children having to go through the section 29 process looking for school places has reduced for those categories because we are now opening enough of those special schools and classes.

To answer the Deputy's question, we want this to be based on need and not assessment. We want to have teams of people in the NCSE who can come in and help schools. We would then align that with the initial teacher training, the ongoing CPD and the behaviour programme that Mr. Doody has talked about. Built into that will be further training on behaviours and also the drawdown of expert behavioural support that schools will be able to avail of. We are hoping that will result in significant benefits as regards the challenges the Deputy has outlined.