Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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Question 187: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will review the practice where schools are allocated psychological assessments in student numbers rather than on need; her views on whether this system is not working; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34238/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, all primary and post primary schools have access to psychological assessments either directly through the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) or through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA), full details of which are available on my Department's website. 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. The prioritisation of urgent cases for assessment is a matter for the school principal in the first instance.

In common with other psychological services 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 is based on need and allows the psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually.

The introduction of the new General Allocation model last year has also meant that children with high incidence special needs can get support without the requirement of a psychological assessment as all primary schools now have an allocation of hours to meet the needs of such pupils.