Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 November 2016
225. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills the schools throughout the State which do not currently have a National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologist assigned to them in tabular form. [37466/16]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware my Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides an educational psychological service to schools through the direct assignment of a NEPS psychologist and in some cases through by providing schools access to the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA) where schools can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly.
In respect of NEPS staffing, NEPs psychologists are recruited via regional panels formed from national recruitment competitions administered by the Public Appointments service. In the case of some schools, NEPs psychologists may no longer be assigned to those schools as a result of retirement, resignation or transfer to another NEPs region, and while every effort was made to recruit a replacement from the existing PAS panels sometimes this is not successful.
However it is important to point out that in these cases, these schools continue to have access to a psychologist through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments which is also run by NEPS.
A new national recruitment competition was has been put in place by PAS to fill vacancies within all NEPS Regions. The closing date for applications is now passed and work is currently ongoing in relation to the examination of applications and short-listing of candidates for interview. It is envisaged, following interviews, that recruitment panels will be formed and active filling of vacancies will commence in the New Year.
The list of schools which do not currently have a NEPs psychologies assigned to them under the assigned NEPS psychologist assigned to them under the assigned NEPS psychologist scheme, and which therefore are relying on the Scheme for Commission Psychological Assessments, is contained in the following link.
It is also important to point out that all schools are able to access full NEP supports in the event of a critical incident.
