Vol. 529 No. 3
21 Mr. Flanagan asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will authorise a voucher payment system to enable parents of children with psychological and educational problems to have psychological assessments carried out by recognised educational psychologists paid for by his Department in circumstances where the national education psychological service is not available to children; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2713/01]
There are 78 psychologists serving with the national educational psychological service. This reflects a welcome expansion, as 28 of these have been appointed since the beginning of September 2000 and it is intended to appoint up to 21 more psychologists before the end of the current school year. In addition, I intend to proceed with the recruitment of an additional 25 psychologists during this calendar year.
In order to provide a full and effective psychological service, it is essential that each psychologist should be allocated a realistic number of schools to serve. It is clear, therefore, that expansion of the NEPS service to all schools must occur in a phased and orderly manner. Most of the newly appointed psychologists have now been assigned to schools. The final list of additional schools that will now have access to NEPS is being prepared and will be available to me for my approval before the end of the month. As each psychologist is appointed, more schools will be added to the list. Recruitment to NEPS will continue until a full complement of educational psychologists has been reached and all schools have access to the service.
However, I recognise the need for some schools and parents to be able to gain access to psychological assessments in situations where a national educational psychological service psychologist has not yet been appointed, or has had to take a career break.
