The psychological service provided by my Department to primary schools is still in the development phase. During the past year, this service was enhanced by the employment of a number of psychologists on short-term contract. One of these psychologists has been assigned to a number of primary schools in County Sligo. To ensure a quality service, it is important that a realistic number of schools should be assigned to each psychologist. This inevitably means that some schools unfortunately do not currently have access to the service.
I am aware of the value to schoolchildren of having a readily available psychological service and the provision of this has been one of my priorities during my time in office. On 11 February last, I announced the decision by the Government to establish a national educational psychological service agency. This agency will be formally established as and from 1 September 1999 and will begin to provide a service on that date. The process of recruiting additional psychologists for the agency has already begun. An advertisement for additional staff has been placed and interviews for the new posts will be held shortly. It is envisaged that all schools will have access to the psychological service at the end of a five year period and most will have access before that time.
