Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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285. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the way in which the NEPS service interacts with the CAMHS service; and the number of referrals that have been made by NEPS to CAMHS for each of the years 2014 to 2016, to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21193/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware 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). Under this scheme schools 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.

NEPS liaises on an ongoing basis with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) at national, regional and local levels, developing and maintaining protocols and processes around referral pathways, and co-operative work-practices, to support and plan for the needs of these students in schools.

Where the NEPS psychologist undertakes consultation or assessment of an individual pupil full details thereof are maintained on that individual's file maintained at NEPS local office level. While a central database (Casetrack) is maintained nationally which records short-hand detail of all such interactions (pupil name, d.o.b, school, class, nature of concern, findings and recommendations, etc) and may cite the fact that the individual has been referred onwards to another service it does not necessarily allow for the identification of the specific service. It is not possible to identify the number of referrals made to the CAMHS service from this source.