Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 October 2023
260. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Education to provide a breakdown of allocation specifically to NEPS as contained in Budget 2024, which appears to state a reduction of funding of over €20 million. [45209/23]
View answerMy Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychological support to all primary and post-primary and special schools.
The NEPS service provides access for all schools to:
• Psychological support in the event of a Critical Incident
• A Casework Service for individual children where there is a need for intensive consultation and assessment via a NEPS psychologist or through the Scheme for the Commissioning of Psychological Assessments (SCPA).
• A school staff Support and Development Service, to build school capability to provide a comprehensive continuum of support in schools and
• Ongoing access to advice and support for schools.
As part of the consolidation of Departmental salaries within the Administration subheads in 2024 for ‘Vote 26: Office of the Minster for Education’ all salary costs are now being presented under subhead line ‘(i) Salaries, Wages and allowances’. This is part of an overall Government Accounting reforms to ensure as much as possible consistency across Voted expenditures and accounts for each Vote.
Therefore, in 2023 the expenditure for NEPS pay and non-pay costs were allocated and reported within the Administration subhead ‘(viii) National Education Psychological Services’. In 2024, the pay element of the NEPS is now recorded under the administrative subhead ‘(i) Salaries, Wages and allowances’. In 2024, this reallocation of NEPS pay expenditure to another subhead line has resulted in a decrease to the (viii) subhead line allocation and a corresponding increase to the (i) subhead line. This has not resulted in any reduction to NEPS overall funding allocation from 2023 to 2024. The final budget figure will be available after the Revised Estimate process. In addition to the NEPS budget I was also pleased to announce that my Department has secured additional funding in Budget 2024 to continue the counselling in primary school pilot for an additional year, until June 2025.
