Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

65. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of psychologists employed under the National Educational Psychology Service in each of the years 2006 to 2016 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15235/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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 psychologist staffing levels within NEPS, but has increased them by some 10% since late 2008, to 162 whole time equivalent psychologists currently employed. 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.

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.

For the information of the Deputy, the following table sets out the number of educational psychologists employed in NEPS for the past ten years.

NEPS Educational Psychologist Numbers 2006/07 to 2015/16

Notes:

Psychologist number is stated in equivalent whole-time posts (E.W.T.) and at 31st December of the year specified.