Vol. 495 No. 7
691 Ms Cooper-Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Science when the services of an educational psychologist (details supplied) who was recently appointed to Castlebar, County Mayo, to look after nine schools in the area will be extended to other schools in the area who in the past enjoyed the services of a clinical psychologist; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21298/98]
Thirty primary schools in County Mayo have been assigned to one of the psychologists employed by my Department. This number of schools represents a substantial workload and it is not intended to allocate any more schools to the psychologist concerned.
It is my intention that, during my time in office, my Department will begin to make psychological services available to all school children. I therefore established a planning group in 1997 to advise me on the setting up of a national educational psychological service. The Department of Health was represented on the planning group in order to ensure a coherent approach to the provision of psychological services for children.
The report of the planning group for the service has now been published. The report includes an account of the current availability of psychological services to children and young people, as well as recommendations as to the developments that will be necessary in order to ensure effective provision in all areas. This includes liaison at local level between all providers of support services for children. I have now set up an implementation group in my Department to plan the phased, orderly expansion of the national educational psychological service to all schools. It will necessarily take some time before the service is universally available.
It is my view that children of school age should have access to both clinical and educational psychologists so that they may receive the psychological support that is appropriate to their particular needs. Representatives of my Department's psychological service have recently contacted the child care managers and other relevant officers of the regional health boards. They have supplied them with the lists of schools that have been assigned to psychologists employed by my Department. My Department's psychologists are prepared to work closely with their counterparts in the health services in order to ensure effective and coherent provision in the various regions.
