Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

One difficulty that could be identified is that not all psychologists are willing to work in all areas, and it is becoming difficult to recruit psychologists to work in particular areas throughout the country. They are now working to try to target their recruitment and let people know in advance where they will be working to meet the needs in those areas. That is the reason the scheme has been successful in terms of commissioning psychological assessments outside that. As well as providing the service, the national psychological education service also works closely with the schools to find ways to support the school and the teacher in the classroom. It does tremendous work also with the family. It is important to acknowledge the various tragedies that have affected our schools over the past few years, and even in the past few weeks. NEPS provides a tremendous support service to all children in the school and to schools in dealing with crises. That is added work it does in addition to its own work.

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