Dr. Michael Drumm:

We are driven to be exemplary in that, given our training and experience. We try to do it as best we can. It is on selection criteria and interview and it is encouraged. Psychology is probably one of the top three undergraduate courses applied for among leaving certificate students. The points are astronomically high for the course. The places dictate that, not the stuff that might be needed to get it done. That is a bottleneck and, as Dr. Kehoe said, there is also a bottleneck at the professional level. People might do a master’s degree, work as an assistant psychologist or apply for a doctorate in counselling psychology in Trinity College where there might be 150 applicants. Those who get an interview bring that number down to 50 and the number of second round interviews might drop as low as 28. The university will offer 12 places. As such, we can see where the bottleneck is just getting tighter.

We get many overseas applicants from the UK and all over Europe. They come in and get a statement of equivalence to work here from the Department of Education. That is a significant part of our work and our workforce as well.

We need to increase places and funding so that it is equitable. That funding does not need to come exclusively from health; it needs to come from education, justice or wherever those people will ultimately work. There needs to be a shared cross-departmental solution to that. The burden cannot fall to health to do that.