Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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195. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if NEPS will assign a psychologist to cater for children in a school (details supplied). [35776/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy may be aware my Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides an educational psychological 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), full details of which are in the NEPS section of my Department's website. 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 psychologists are recruited via regional panels formed from national recruitment competitions administered by the Public Appointments Service (PAS). The school to which the Deputy refers lost its assigned NEPS psychologist to an internal transfer to another Region, following promotion, and while attempts were made to fill the vacancy in the NEPS Navan office from the existing PAS panel they were ultimately unsuccessful.

A new national recruitment competition was has been put in place by PAS to fill vacancies within all NEPS Regions. The closing date for applications is now passed and work is currently ongoing in relation to the examination of applications and short-listing of candidates for interview. It is envisaged following interviews that recruitment panels will be formed and active filling of vacancies will commence in the new year.

In the interim, schools whose service from NEPS are the subject of such vacancies have been advised that they may access assessment services via the Scheme for the Commissioning of Psychological Assessments described above and that they will continue to be able to access advice and assistance, in the event of a critical incident, from their local NEPS office.

My Department’s NEPS service will continue to communicate developments in this regard to the schools involved.