Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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570. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if a new recruitment campaign for psychologists to join the Irish Prison Service will be launched early in 2023. [59019/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The role of the Psychology Service in the Irish Prison Service is to deliver, develop and manage an integrated mental health and criminogenic needs assessment and treatment service for people in custody, in line with service plans and objectives, and within established professional standards, guidelines and policy.

I am informed that the Irish Prison Service currently employ various psychologist grades, including Head of Psychological Services, Principal Psychologist Manager, Senior Psychologists (Grade I), Staff Grade Psychologists (Grade II), and Assistant Psychologists.

I wish to advise the Deputy that the Irish Prison Service have informed me that a new Psychologist recruitment campaign has been agreed for May - June 2023.

I can further advise the Deputy that the Irish Prison Service engaged in a recruitment campaign for psychologists in May 2022. There are currently eight Psychologists from that campaign who are going through clearance and expected to start early in 2023.

To ensure service continuity, the Irish Prison Service actively engage a locum agency on an ongoing basis to fill vacant posts in the short to medium term which arise in between competitions for permanent posts.

In order to keep informed of upcoming opportunities, interested parties should register their details with the Public Appointments Service on www.publicjobs.ie and they should also regularly review the Irish Prison Service website on www.irishprisons.ie