Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

As I stated, the NEPS has recently issued a set of guidelines and resource packs for all schools outlining exactly the nature of the graduation model. The full, thorough psycho-educational assessment is only necessary for the small number of pupils for whom assessment and intervention within the school has not worked and for those who have clear and significant special educational needs on entry to school.

Such a staged process should also be used by school principals in prioritising children for assessment through the private scheme. Most children with special educational needs do not, therefore, need individual assessments in order to access extra supports at school. However, all schools have access to assessments for their pupils either directly through the NEPS or through the scheme for commissioning private psychological assessments. Through this scheme, schools that are not yet served directly by the NEPS or Dublin VEC psychologists can commission assessments from any one of 140 private psychologists and the NEPS will pay for them. As a general rule, schools can commission assessments from psychologists on the private panel for up to 2% of their pupil population in any given year. It is up to school principals to decide which pupils need these assessments. Principals who consider that there are exceptional circumstances that warrant additional assessments may consult the NEPS about these cases.

During the last academic year some 4,400 assessments were funded under the SCPA, at a total cost of nearly €1.5 million. Almost 5,800 assessments were carried out by NEPS psychologists in the same period. Therefore, in total, over 10,000 assessments were paid for by my Department in the last school year alone. It is also estimated that an additional 5,000 students benefited from specific advice and consultation provided by NEPS psychologists for their teachers. NEPS psychologists also provided recommendations on some 2,800 students seeking reasonable accommodations in the leaving certificate examinations in the last school year.

The Private Members' motion before the House refers to charities paying for assessments. I take it this relates to the publicity earlier this year about some branches of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul covering the cost of assessments last year. Given the fact that more than 10,000 assessments were funded by my Department that year and that the introduction of the general allocation model which allocated resource teachers to every primary school had reduced the need for assessments, I was genuinely concerned to hear the Society of St. Vincent de Paul had been paying for assessments. Officials from NEPS met the society to explore the nature of these referrals and I also discussed the matter at a meeting with the head of the society. Through the interaction that has taken place between NEPS and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in recent months, a greater understanding of the overall context in which the psychological service is provided to schools exists and a process has been agreed between the two bodies to record and monitor demand.

As I have already explained, all schools have access to assessments either directly through NEPS or through the private scheme. The number of schools served directly by NEPS is, therefore, only half the picture. Nonetheless, the Government is committed to expanding the number of NEPS psychologists so that more schools can receive a direct service.

As the Deputies will be aware, the National Educational Psychological Service did not exist at all until 1999. This Government not only established NEPS: we have trebled its staffing to a current total of 134 psychologists. In addition, a further 16 psychologists provide a service through the Dublin city and county VECs. Taken together, there are currently 150 educational psychologists working in services paid for by the Department of Education and Science.

See this speech in context