Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for attending this morning to hear this Commencement matter. A new professional doctorate in educational psychology will commence in September and the Government has very generously made available a bursary of €40,000 per student at taxpayers' expense. I do not know if it is generally understood in Cabinet that this course will only qualify its graduates to work with the National Educational Psychology Service, NEPS. It an excellent service. It is very well managed and has no wait lists. However, the course will not qualify its graduates to work with the 400 HSE primary care teams throughout the State or with our 91 children’s disability network teams. None of the graduates of this course will be able to work with the 90 child and adolescent mental health services teams in the country, to work with the section 38 or section 39 care providers or to work with Tusla. That is an extraordinary waste of taxpayers' money. Similar doctoral programmes in educational psychology, such as the ones run in the University of Limerick, UCD and Queen's University Belfast, qualify their graduates to work in all those settings and NEPS. The course in Maynooth is an outlier in its course design. It is very narrow in its scope. Having spent 22 years in the academic setting designing courses and supervising students to PhD and at postdoctoral level, I know it would take the course design team maybe one or two meetings to change the design ever so slightly so that its graduates could address the very pressing needs in all those other care settings.

The Minister of State will be aware that in our primary care teams there are children waiting up to nine years for a psychological intervention. Throughout the country, there will be 25,000 children waiting on an assessment of need that can be carried out by an educational psychologist were they to be properly qualified. This is countrywide. For example, in Dublin north city and west, there are 2,816 children waiting to see an educational psychologist, while Cavan-Monaghan has 3,550 and Louth-Meath 1,447. For each one of those children, there is also a family. In many cases they are waiting two, three or four years to see an educational psychologist. We know we face a very significant recruitment and retention challenge for psychologists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. I welcome this development – it is a great initiative – but for the want of a little change in the course design, graduates will only be able to work with NEPs. It is an excellent service but it is already well resourced. It does not have waiting lists. In the areas of most acute need in our communities, in CAMHS and in the primary healthcare areas, none of its graduates will be able to work. It is an anomaly in that the similar courses run in UCD, Queens and UL qualify their graduates to work everywhere. I hope someone can speak to the president of Maynooth University and get that little change put in place to benefit us all.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I am grateful to Senator Clonan for raising this issue. The importance of the National Educational Psychological Service, which he raised, is not lost on this Government. It provides a critical service to almost 1 million children and young people and almost 100,000 staff who work in our primary, post-primary and special schools daily.

The Government has set its commitment to double the number of educational psychologists in schools. There are 240 educational psychologists in NEPS but, as with any service, there are ongoing vacancies due to statutory leave, retirements and promotion so to really deliver for children we need so many more in our system as a matter of urgency. To give some idea of the scale of the need, there is one NEPS psychologist for every 4,600 children in schools in Ireland. In other countries there is an educational psychologist for approximately every 1,900 children, so there is a very significant gap which we need to address. Bridging that gap will require approximately 550 educational psychologists, which means an additional 330 psychologists working in the system.

The Department of Education and Youth has progressed a number of initiatives over the last few years in order to increase the supply of educational psychologists including running annual recruitment campaigns and providing bursaries to students in the two existing programmes.The House may also be aware that there are only two courses in Ireland providing professional training programmes for educational psychologists and, as Senator Clonan laid out, graduates are shared across the education and health sectors. NEPS is committed to employing the graduates of the courses supported by the education bursaries but unfortunately these existing courses provide fewer than 15 graduates annually to NEPS. If our ambition is to grow the statutory National Educational Psychological Service in the way I have described, we need a complete change in mindset and a willingness to work in new ways to make this happen.

The Minister was delighted, last March, to welcome the announcement by Maynooth University of its intention to commence a new professional training programme for educational psychology, which will start, as the Senator set out, in September. This course is much needed. After a competitive interview process, 20 candidates of the highest calibre have now signed up to start their professional training on this programme. The Department is extending its bursary scheme to support these students and the programme will support a substantial increase in the number of qualified educational psychologists available to NEPS. This new programme is a significant step forward in the Government's commitment to significantly increase the number of college places for educational psychologists as outlined. I can absolutely reassure the Senator that this programme will adhere to the very highest standards of education and training that are in line with international accreditation standards for educational psychologists.

The NEPS service is committed to supporting this programme, as it does the other professional training programmes, through the provision of practice placements, supervisory support and input to the training itself. Over the three-year programme, trainees will develop expertise in the core skills of assessment, intervention, consultation, training and research within a variety of educational and service settings. They will gain hands-on experience working with children, young people, families and professionals, ensuring they are well prepared to support the learning, development and emotional well-being of children and young people. They will also gain expertise working with multidisciplinary teams with continually evolving opportunities for such work within the education sector, including as part of the multidisciplinary team in the north-east inner city, working with other multidisciplinary teams in education, including the education therapy support service and the new national therapy service which will be introduced from this year into special schools.

I fully understand the points made and the career-wide bona fides of the Senator in this regard. However, a deliberate decision has been taken to focus on NEPS. It is not to exclude other services. Other areas will be provided for. I am more than happy to make the Senator's points to the Minister directly and to the president of the university. However, there is method in the process here.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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NEPS is a great service and it absolutely needs to recruit educational psychologists, but this method is tailoring a doctoral training course to be specific to the needs of NEPS to the exclusion of all the other areas where the need is more acute while children are going into psychological distress for want of a brief intervention. Some of those children go on to develop serious issues and problems that become life-altering and life-limiting. If we were to look at the area of most pressing need, the logical conclusion would be to accredit a course that qualifies graduates not only to work in NEPS, where they are absolutely needed, but also to work elsewhere. I appreciate the Minister of State's assurance that he will speak to the Minister, Deputy Lawless, about this. It is a mistake. I understand the reasoning behind it, but it is a lost opportunity when all the other areas could benefit.

However, I thank the Minister of State for his engagement and I appreciate his assurances.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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It is important to say that I am replying on behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth, as opposed to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Senator will understand the need for the Department of Education and Youth to make sure there are qualified psychologists coming into NEPS in particular. That goes to the heart of the issue at play. I have been assured by the relevant Ministers that this course will be of the highest standard and will be fully integrated and aligned with the wider governmental need in the education sector, but it will not be either-or. Other supports for training in the wider scheme will be made available. I will be more than happy to take that forward for the Senator.