Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Question 579: To ask the Minister for Education and Science, further to Question No. 1295 of 28 September 2005 and her views regarding psychologists and public sector numbers, if she is re-abandoning the promise of her predecessor that all schools would have access to their own educational psychologist. [32490/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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All primary and post-primary schools have access to psychological assessments for their pupils, either directly through National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologists or through the scheme for commissioning psychological assessments, SCPA, that is administered by NEPS. Schools that do not currently have NEPS psychologists assigned to them may avail of the SCPA, whereby the school can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly. Details of this process and the conditions that apply to the scheme are available on my Department's website.

NEPS also provides assistance to all schools that suffer from critical incidents, regardless of whether they have a NEPS psychologist assigned to them. Also, with regard to all schools, NEPS processes applications on behalf of students with specific learning disabilities for reasonable accommodations in certificate examinations.

The number of psychologists in the Department has increased from 43 on the date of establishment of NEPS to a current figure of 121, including three NDA psychologists working in NEPS and one psychologist on assignment to the further education section of the Department. There are also four psychologists on career break.

The Public Appointments Service recently concluded a new recruitment competition for the appointment of educational psychologists to NEPS. Candidates were asked to indicate regions in which they were prepared to serve. My Department is currently in the process of appointing eight psychologists from the panels. The internal management group in NEPS identified the following priority regions for appointment: mid-west region — four appointments; south-west area of eastern region — two appointments; north-west region — one appointment; south-east region — one appointment. Any increase in the overall numbers of psychologists in NEPS must take account of Government policy on public sector numbers.