Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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544. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of full-time medical staff, by job title, and psychology staff, by job title, working in each prison in Ireland as of 31 December 2020 and 16 May 2022. [26168/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that a breakdown of medical and psychology staff currently employed by the Irish Prison Service is set out in the tables below. I can further inform the Deputy that there a number of vacant posts for the grades of Doctor, Senior Psychologist and Staff Grade Psychologist and as these posts, where possible, are being filled through the use of locums, details on the use of locums in these circumstances are also included in the tables.

In respect of the vacant posts, the Irish Prison Service recently held a competition for the position of Prison Doctor, a panel has been formed and it is expected that assignments will be offered in the coming months.

The Prison Service are currently carrying a number of vacancies of Staff Grade Psychologist that are not filled through the use of locums. The Irish Prison Service will run a competition to recruit three permanent Senior Psychologists in the coming weeks. The Service has also commenced preparation for the recruitment of Clinical and Counselling Psychologists in order to fill vacant and new posts across the service. This campaign will run in line with completion of 2022 psychologist training programmes.

Separately, in order to positively impact recruitment and retention of psychologists, the Service has recommenced the process of funding psychologist training in 2022. This funding initiative is in line with other public bodies and mental health institutions such as the HSE and St Patrick’s Hospital respectively. Two Irish Prison Service sponsored clinical psychologists-in-training will commence the UCC Practitioner Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme in September 2022.