Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

53. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will address the fact that there are 95,000 pupils in 396 schools across the country who have no National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologist assigned to them for assessment; and his views on whether the current ratio of psychologists to students is allowing timely access to assessment for children presenting with developmental or behavioural issues. [10486/17]

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

All primary and post-primary receive educational psychological service from my Department’s National Educational Psychological Service.

Assessment services are provided by NEPS and delivered by a NEPS psychologist or where such staff are not currently available, by a private practitioner from a panel maintained by NEPS under the Scheme for Commissioning of Psychological Assessments (SCPA). Under the SCPA scheme, assessments are carried out by a member of a panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly. The resulting assessment, whomsoever delivers it in this situation, treats with the child, forms a professional opinion as to the issues raised and makes recommendations as to the appropriate interventions to ameliorate the particular difficulties.

In regard to the vacancies in the existing NEPS staffing complement nationally I can inform the Deputy that NEPS psychologists are recruited via regional panels formed from national recruitment competitions administered by the Public Appointments Service (PAS).  In total, 21 NEPS psychologists will be recruited in the coming months to bring the total number of NEPS phycologists to 183 (a 13% increase from the current level of 162). 11 of these will be in place by the end of the current academic year, while another 10 will be in place for the commencement of the 2017/2018 academic year. In the interim the affected schools are allowed access to the above mentioned SCPA scheme for their assessment needs and will continue to be supported by NEPS personnel in the event of a critical incident.

My Department recognises the valuable service provided by NEPS psychologists to schools and the growing workload in terms of school population and demand. The current programme for Government has committed to increasing NEPS numbers by 65.