Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I thank Deputy Jan O'Sullivan for sharing her time. I welcome this motion and the opportunity to address the need for psychological services in our schools to be available to all who need them. This is the critical point. The Department of Education and Science must ensure that every child, regardless of where he or she goes to school, has quick access to an educational psychologist on the basis of need. This is not happening.

Certainly, the mechanism and the framework for providing such a service is in place. The establishment of the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, in 1999 was welcome and long overdue. NEPS is tasked with providing psychological services in public and private primary and post-primary schools. Its stated aim is to support the personal, social and educational development of all children through the application of psychological theory and practice in education. The agency has particular responsibility for children with special educational needs.

It is worth recalling that the aims of NEPS are to provide direct contact and services to young people needing the support of an educational psychologist; provide a consultancy service aimed at developing competencies and the effective use of educational resources; develop a service model that caters for support and development, assessment and systems work; provide the Minister for Education and Science with advice and support and to influence educational policy; develop effective communication with other sections of the Department of Education and Science and other bodies that deliver services to children and follow the best practice in educational psychology in conducting research.

The psychologists employed by NEPS are located in ten regions. They work directly with a number of schools and their work includes engaging in individual casework with children and young people, providing a consultation service for teachers and parents, participating in school-based projects relevant to educational psychology and promoting mental health in schools. NEPS is the mechanism for delivery and its aims and work programme are clearly set out. However, it is hampered in its work due to the insufficient number of psychologists being recruited. As a result, it is not fully operational and cannot reach its potential in terms of life-changing assistance for children.

All the experts strongly assert that early intervention is vital. With early diagnosis of special educational needs, intervention can be triggered and a child can make significant progress as a direct result. That school children have to wait far too long to access educational psychologists is extremely damaging to their development. American research shows that in 75% of cases where children with reading disabilities are not identified and provided with appropriate teaching interventions by the age of nine, their problems are likely to persist into their late teens and beyond. Children having to wait more than two years to access speech and language therapy makes a mockery of Government commitments to early intervention. Sadly, all of us in this House are aware of the terrible trauma these long delays create for caring parents who want to access essential supports for their child with special needs.

Getting a child assessed proves extremely difficult for many parents. Parents who can afford to do so must resort to expensive private psychological assessments and they do so in increasing numbers. It is extremely unfair that the children of parents who cannot afford to obtain these expensive private assessments should have to suffer. Charities are stepping into the void left by Government failure. As Deputy Jan O'Sullivan highlighted, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul has privately funded more than 1,000 psychological assessments of children and young people. This is an indictment of Government failure in this regard.

School children deserve access to speedy assessments and this will only come when NEPS is adequately resourced. Eight years after its inception, NEPS still does not have its promised 200 psychologists. It will have to wait until 2009 to receive the full complement. This means that many individual psychologists in its service are extremely overworked. While parents have stated that the service provided is excellent, availability is inadequate and patchy. Not enough assessments are carried out and more follow-up is required. Children assessed in first class are not reviewed until fifth or sixth class and this is clearly inadequate.

Children are precluded from being assessed due to the limited number of assessments annually. The fact that not all children recommended to be assessed are seen results in children slipping through the net. According to one estimate, 51% of schools do not have access to the service, which is an incredible statistic. The number of children in primary schools is set to increase and the number of primary schools is increasing in major areas of growth and development in the State. With this growth will come greater need for these services. If the Government does not get its act together more and more children will fall behind.

The Union of Students in Ireland, USI, pointed out that students with learning disabilities are being let down by the long waiting lists for psychological assessments. Students with learning disabilities finish secondary school and enter third-level education without having received an up-to-date psychological assessment. The USI also highlighted the implications of a new proposal by the disability advisers working network that students with a specific learning disability should be required to provide a psychological assessment carried out in the past three years to support their third-level CAO application. As a result of the long waiting list for a State assessment, students would have no choice but to pay for an expensive private assessment should this new proposal be implemented.

The USI also reported that students are being forced to wait for up to two years for a psychological assessment by the NEPS. A student with learning disabilities who does not receive an up-to-date psychological assessment could miss out on critical educational supports. Students deprived of a State assessment because of the waiting list could now face a financial penalty. The USI stated: "Requiring students with a specific disability to furnish a psychological assessment carried out in the past three years to support their college application would simply be the wrong way forward." Will the Minister of State, Deputy Devins, and the Minister for Education and Science give their views of this proposal by the disability advisers working network in their responses to this debate?

I remind the House that in 2005, Sinn Féin Deputies tabled a Private Members' motion on special educational needs. It provoked an informative debate and, I hope, helped in some way to spur the Government on to further action as, I hope, will tonight's debate. Replying to that debate the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, stated: "In particular the Minister for Finance is obliged to have due regard to the State's duty to provide for an education appropriate to the needs of every child under the Constitution and the necessity to provide equity of treatment for all children." That was a true statement and I hope it is applied to the forthcoming budget in terms of increased allocations for special needs education in general and the psychological assessment service in particular.

It is imperative that the Government increases resources for NEPS, immediately employs additional psychologists and expands the service to all schools so that any child who requires an assessment gets one as soon as practicable. Our children deserve no less.

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