Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 400: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the average waiting periods for parents and teachers of special needs children to have assessments carried out by a child psychologist; if parents who have assessments carried out privately, will be reimbursed if they experience unacceptable delays; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22997/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Children with acknowledged special needs are generally identified through the psychological services of the health service and of the voluntary bodies prior to the enrolment of such children in primary schools. Children who manifest very special needs in school and who have not been previously assessed by a psychologist and are brought to the attention of a NEPS psychologist by the principal teacher, will normally be assessed by the psychologist within that school term.

NEPS encourages a staged assessment process, whereby each school takes responsibility for initial assessment, educational planning and remedial intervention, in consultation with their assigned NEPS psychologist. Only if there is a failure to make reasonable progress in spite of the school's best efforts, will a child be referred for individual psychological assessment. This system allows the psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually.

As the end of the 2004-05 school year approaches, NEPS management is conducting a survey to ascertain how many children have been through the staged assessment process in school but who still need individual psychological assessments. As soon as the information has been collated, every effort will be made to ensure that urgent assessment needs will be met as soon as possible.

In the case of schools that do not currently have NEPS psychologists assigned to them, such schools have access to educational psychological assessments through the scheme for commissioning psychological assessments, SCPA. Under this scheme, schools can commission assessments from a member of the panel of private practitioners approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the fees directly to the psychologists concerned. Details of this scheme, including the conditions that apply to it, are available on the Department's website.

As arrangements for assessments under the SCPA scheme are made between school principals and individual private practitioners, information on the average waiting time for such psychological assessments is not available in my Department.