Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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90. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the funding provided for NEPS services in Cork in each of the years 2019 to date, in tabular form. [30166/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychological support to all primary and post-primary schools. This involves direct support in the event of a critical incident, access to national and regional support and development work to build school capacity to support students, access to a NEPS psychologist for responses to queries arising, and access to individual pupil casework where there is need via a NEPS psychologist or through the Scheme for the Commissioning of Psychological Assessments (SCPA).

NEPS has received €32.3m allocation this year, with additional €5m Covid-related funding. This brings the overall budget for NEPS in 2024 to a level of €37.3m. This has risen from a figure of €20.8m in 2019. The incremental increases in the NEPS allocated budget from 2019 to 2024 are set out in Table 1:

Table 1

NEPS

psychologists work within a regional and local office structure serving the needs of schools in their immediate vicinity. NEPS is made up of eight administrative regions – Dublin; Dublin Mid-Leinster; Mid-Munster; North-Eastern; North-West/North Midlands; South-East/South Midlands; South-Western; and Western Regions. Mid-Munster Region comprises of both counties Cork and South Tipperary. The numbers of psychologists employed in the NEPS Mid-Munster region since 2019 are set out in Table 2. The numbers have risen from 28 in 2019 to 35 in 2024, an increase of 7 psychologists, representing a 25% increase in psychologist numbers in this period.

Table 2

I can also advise the Deputy that priority service is provided by NEPS in Cork to DEIS primary and post-primary schools. In addition, the NEPS service has been extended to all seventeen special schools within Cork since 2022 and support now extends to in excess of 400 special classes in the Cork area.

In addition to the general work of NEPS within the Mid-Munster Region, it may be of interest to the Deputy that Cork is one of the pilot sites for Strand 2 of the Counselling in Primary Schools Pilot. Strand 2 has seen the establishment of a new type of support to schools from Education Wellbeing Teams and involves the introduction of Education Wellbeing Practitioners to provide enhanced in-school supports for a cluster of primary schools in Cork, Carlow, Dublin 7, and Dublin 16. Fifteen Education Wellbeing Practitioners have been recruited to the four cluster areas and have undergone an intensive training programme provided by NEPS. Four of these Education Wellbeing Practitioners are working in the Cork Cluster providing Strand 2 Services to twenty primary schools. The Education Wellbeing Teams are working with pupils, parents, and school staff to support wellbeing and resilience at a whole school level. NEPS psychologists are providing oversight and professional supervision to support and maintain the work undertaken by the practitioners. This will ensure safe practice and the use of evidence-informed programmes and supports in schools.