James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State mentioned the placement criteria several times. The concern is that the HSE may be trying to compel a large number of existing employees to complete very extensive in-service training in order to maintain eligibility for their own jobs for promotion or transfer. This would severely affect service capacity and the opportunity for service development, as well as the career opportunities available to those employees. It is likely that this will not apply to clinical psychologist employees but only to counselling and educational psychologists. There is no clear rationale for the requirement other than an attempt to implement criteria which have already been shown to lead to multiple problems.

IMPACT has notified the HSE of this numerous times but it has failed to account for it. There are no such requirements, for example, for counselling psychologists employed in the NHS in the UK. The bottom line is that although the recent report is positive in tone, the threat of placements not being recognised and thus graduates being ineligible still stands as the new definitions of appropriate placement are potentially as ambiguous as in the past and could be used to exclude some graduates on an ad hocbasis, as has occurred in the past. As written, they seem to exclude HSE adult primary care services. We still urgently need somebody in the HSE with authority to pre-approve a placement as eligible and help to secure such a placement. There are enough senior psychologists in the system to cater for it.

Although there are enough high-quality psychologists who are appropriately qualified, as would be recognised in the UK, HSE placement requirements, in particular undefined and ad hocrequirements, are excluding those highly qualified psychologists. This is the concern that has been raised by Trinity College, the Psychological Society of Ireland and IMPACT. The issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

We are constantly being told we have a severe shortage of psychologists, but the bodies that know their stuff maintain that the psychologists are there but the HSE is blocking them for ad hocreasons.

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