Vol. 541 No. 4
512 Mr. Stagg asked the Minister for Education and Science if the national educational psychological service has appointed educational psychologists to cover the remainder of the primary schools in north County Kildare; if he will give details of this cover; when appointments will be made; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23173/01]
The management team in NEPS is aware that north Kildare is part of an area partnership scheme and that a number of the schools serve disadvantaged populations. Therefore, north Kildare is being given a high priority in the NEPS roll-out plan.
Two of the NEPS psychologists are about to undertake a preparatory exercise in 12 primary schools in north Kildare. This will include visits to the schools to introduce the psychological service, completion of a needs assessment schedule and provision of inservice training for teachers on screening programmes. This introductory phase will be followed by extension of the full NEPS service to these schools in the next school year.
The Government decided in late July on a package of measures that would benefit children with special educational needs. One of these measures is the acceleration of recruitment to NEPS so that it should reach the full quota of psychologists by the end of 2002 instead of 2004. I have been concerned for some time about the needs of children in schools that do not yet have access to the psychological service provided by NEPS. I have, therefore, recently made funding available to NEPS to allow such schools to commission psychological assessments from private practitioners. NEPS has drawn up and issued to all schools, including those in north Kildare, guidelines on how to avail of this scheme.
