Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. There are two parts to this problem. The first is that we are not churning out quite enough graduates. However, more importantly, those graduates who emerge from these courses are not going into educational psychology, rather, they are back down in classrooms. It makes no sense for someone with an educational psychology qualification to be filling out a referral form for somebody to NEPS, which will not see them for a year or two. That is absolutely illogical. There needs to be a new pay grade in teaching and a new incremental point in order that somebody exiting the college system with this qualification is actually put to practice. The children could bypass NEPS and CAMHS and go down the corridor to Ms Ryan, because she is qualified in this area. In a week's’ time, a diagnostic report could be prepared by a teacher who knows and understands the child and sees that child playing in the yard.

We need to get that competency in-house. That submission has been made by the INTO for budget 2023. Let us activate it. We need to consider the teachers down the corridor who have this skill set, and activate them. We need to get more graduates. We can solve this in-house. It is not a massive thing. This will not take four years of graduates exiting. It will require the activation of those within schools who have the necessary skill set.

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