Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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86. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will make provision for the direct assignment of a national educational psychological service (NEPS) psychologist to a school (details supplied) in County Dublin which currently does not have access to a NEPS psychologist. [39242/16]

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 schools through the direct assignment of a NEPS psychologist and in some cases through by providing schools access to the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA) where 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 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 vetting of same preparatory to the staging of interviews in this connection.  It is envisaged following this that recruitment panels will be formed and active filling of vacancies will commence early 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.