Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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204. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of psychologists employed by the National Educational Psychological Service; the number of these who are on leave of any type and the length of the leave in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14567/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that my Department's National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychology service to all primary and post primary schools through an assigned NEPS psychologist and in some cases through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA).

My Department, over the course of recent economic difficulties, has not only maintained psychologists staffing levels within NEPS, but has increased them by some 10% since late 2008, to 162 whole time equivalent (wte) psychologists currently employed.

The Programme for a Partnership Government commits that we will invest additional resources in the National Educational Psychological Service to ensure earlier intervention and access for young children and teenagers and to offer immediate support to schools in cases of critical incidents. The Programme commits to bring the total number of NEPS psychologists to 238 from the current sanctioned limit of 173

Currently the NEPS psychologist staffing complement stands at 162 whole time equivalents from which some 3.55 wte posts are lost to Parental Leave. Additionally 12 individual psychologists (representing 10.4 wte) are on maternity leave and 7 individuals (6 wte) are on extended sick leave (i.e. for longer than 1 month).

My Department is actively engaged with the Public Appointments Service to recruit nine further psychologists to NEPS from an existing panel of qualified professionals developed for this purpose and it is envisaged that most of these posts will be filled in the immediate future.