Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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133. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools in Dublin which do not have direct access to a National Educational Psychological Service psychologist for the purposes of carrying out an educational assessment, by school, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6256/17]

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. SCPA is utilised, in the main, where as yet unfilled vacancies exist in NEPS staffing provision locally or where staffing resource is lost through extended leave (maternity, sick or carer’s leave).

Included for the Deputy’s information is a list of schools that do not currently have access to a NEPS Psychologist for the purposes of carrying out an assessment in Dublin and which currently derive this service through the abovementioned SCPA scheme. In respect of NEPS staffing, NEPs psychologists are recruited via regional panels formed from national recruitment competitions administered by the Public Appointments service.

In the case of some schools, NEPs psychologists may no longer be assigned to those schools as a result of retirement, resignation or transfer to another NEPs region, and while every effort was made to fill the resulting vacancy during 2016 from the existing PAS panels this was not successful and the panel was closed.

A new national recruitment competition has been put in place by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to fill vacancies within all NEPS Regions.  The resulting interview process associated with this competition was completed last week and recruitment panels for each NEPS region, including Dublin, will now be formed.  PAS will finalise the processing of the candidates, including Garda vetting, and propose each candidate in series to my Department Human Resources Section for contract negotiations and formal job offer.

It is envisaged that the process will produce new NEPS psychologists for assignment to schools, including that to which the Deputy refers in his question, by the end of the current academic year.

In addition a number of the assigned NEPS psychologists to schools, included in the attached count, are currently absent due to maternity leave, long-term sick leave or carer’s leave necessitating a temporary hiatus in NEPS coverage. This situation will change as individual staff return to work.

However it is important to point out that in cases where NEPS service is not available through staffing vacancy or temporary absence of staff, as described above, the schools affected continue to have access to a psychologist through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments to undertake pupil assessment work.

I would also confirm that all schools are able to access full NEP supports in the event of a critical incident irrespective of their having ongoing access to an assigned NEPS psychologist or not.

County by County of schools that do not currently have access to a NEPS Psychologist for the purposes of carrying out an educational assessment (ref: 2/2/17)