Vol. 122 No. 21
I have notice from Senator Joe O'Toole that on the motion for the Adjournment of the House today he proposes to raise the following matter:
The provision of a schools' psychological service for primary schools and in particular the provision of a psychological referral service for the west County Dublin area.
There is a dual matter at stake here but, principally, a primary schools psychological service. It is very difficult to give a rounded presentation of what I am seeking. I will attempt in the first place to present the problem as I see it, which is that pupils and teachers in this country suffer from our having the largest class sizes in Europe. I have mentioned that problem many times previously in this House. There is a national consensus about the difficulties that creates. I want to focus on one specific difficulty that arises, not because of the large class sizes — it would have arisen anyway — but which is exacerbated by them. It is this, the fact that a teacher identifies and recognises a child with a particular learning, social or emotional difficulty and, in turn, needs the assistance of another professional in order to diagnose precisely that area of difficulty. This always tends to be a very traumatic time for the pupil concerned — sometimes the teacher — but always very definitely for the family. Usually the next step is that the teacher has a word with the parents concerned telling them that the child is experiencing particular difficulties and the help of a psychologist in order to assess what should be the next step, what remedial action should be taken to allow the pupil develop as an individual in the way sought in the new curriculum. The new curriculum speaks about enabling the child to live the full life of a child and to equip himself or herself to avail of further education so that he or she may go on to live a full and useful life as an adult in society.
In terms of identifying pupils with particular needs, a teacher must discuss the matter with the parents and seek additional professional help in order to ascertain whether the problem is social, is psychological difficulty in learning or whatever, all the different aspects of living that need to be examined in such circumstances. Usually on such occasions, at least initially, the most helpful person will be an educational psychologist.
I know that the Minister agrees wholeheartedly with me in this regard and, to her credit, has said so publicly. I am trying to draw a picture of what happens in the classroom. The teacher having got that far decides to discuss the matter with the child's parents. The teacher then meets the parents and discusses the matter with them. We must remember that it is very traumatic for parents to hear that their child is experiencing a difficulty which might require the assistance of outside professional help, particularly of a psychologist. It tends to create some tension in the home, but the vast majority of parents come to terms with that. They look forward to having a meeting with a psychologist, to whom their child can be referred, so that they can take whatever action is recommended on that basis.
The next step involves referring that child to some adequate psychological service. The problem is that that service does not exist at present. What that means today is that any child assessed by a teacher in the classroom as needing some type of outside help must wait interminably for that psychological service. What has happened is that in this city, particularly in the western part of County Dublin, stretching from, say, Mulhuddart to Tallaght, including Clondalkin there have been schools and housing provided but no attendant infrastructural services. I know I am speaking to the converted but it is important to get clearly on the record that the child must wait indefinitely while nothing happens. We are talking about the most formative years of a child's life — a year lost can never be replaced. The most worrying aspect is what has happened recently. A teacher telephoned me about three weeks ago and said there were nine or ten pupils waiting to be assessed psychologically. The children in this school came from the working class and the middle class; some people were reasonably well off and others were very badly off. Some of the pupils had been waiting for the State to provide the service for over a year. In the meantime, another child came to the notice of a teacher who felt the pupil should be psychologically assessed. The teacher told the parents and said unfortunately, he did not know when the child would be assessed. The parents asked if that meant their child would be waiting a year or a year and a half without getting the proper help or support and when they found that to be the case, they said they would pay for the services of a psychologist. They got a psychologist and had their child assessed. In fact, they paid the psychologist to come to the school. The teacher was in a quandary. In his class there were three or four pupils waiting for assessment but this pupil who had only recently arrived and needed assessment had a psychologist calling to the school and looking after him. It is impossible for schools to work under those conditions. I know the Minister would agree with that. It is untenable for teachers to try to operate in those circumstances.
I should like to go a little further. A number of different teachers have been in touch with me assessing the difficulties in their areas. I refer particularly to a group of teachers in the Clondalkin area who took the pupil service by a group of 20 schools with approximately 8,500 pupils. They found that in what is probably the only real growth area in terms of housing in Ireland at present, there is an educational psychological service in national schools, there are long delays in the assessment procedure for non-psychiatric referrals, many of the schools in the Clondalkin area are officially recognised as disadvantaged by the Department of Education and, that the basic rights of these children are being denied. I could develop that point at great lengths but I will not do that. I am simply stating the problem for the record and I know the Minister is aware of that fact.
My own organisation, the INTO, have held discussions on this matter for more than 14 years — I have records in front of me which go back to the early seventies. The INTO have been in consultation with the Psychological Society of Ireland and both have been in contact with various Ministers and the Department of Education. There is agreement — and this is the important point — between the Department of Education, the INTO and the Psychological Society of Ireland as to how such a service might be implemented and set up. All that prework has been done. There is also agreement that in order to get this off the ground a pilot scheme should be approved. Everyone in the professional area of education agrees that you cannot start something and expect it to work from the first day. It has to be assessed, modified, reassessed, changed, implemented and studied before we finally get what would be a fully working procedure.
In general terms, it would mean that for a set number of schools a team of psychologists would be available; they would be based in one school and they would service a certain number of schools in whatever area, geographical or otherwise, which the Department would decide, in the same way as an inspector advises in different schools in an area. There is total agreement that this should be done. There is also agreement that there should be one pilot scheme in a rural area and one in a urban area. I know the Cathaoirleach will support this where there is disadvantage in the city, it gets a high profile because there are large groups in one area, but there is also rural disadvantage where there might be one exceptionally poor family living in a well off area. They also have need of a psychological service. Even thought poverty is not directly related to the needs of the psychological service, we find high instances of need in areas of socio-economic deprivation. That is the reason I make that point. It is clear that one in every ten or one in every 15 pupils would have need of some sort of remedial help outside the school, and part to that would come under a psychological service. I could not quantify the need in that case except to say that we all agree it is there. We have costed the scheme in many different ways. I should again like to put the case to the Minister I made last September. I want to tell the Minister how a no cost psychological service could be put together. In the primary education system we have a redemployment panel where people wait to be reallocated jobs in another school. By taking these people in the primary education service — there are many fully qualified teachers who also have a diploma in psychology — out of their schools for a year, 18 months or two years — or whatever period it takes to qualify them in a university or college of education as educational psychologists — all the Department need do is redeploy somebody from the panel; somebody who is being paid in any case and is seen by the Department as being in excess of the staffing needs in their school — I would not agree completely with that position as the Minister is well aware. At least, this person who is being paid to do a particular job — and the Department would see him as being in excess of the needs of the school could replace the person who was studying. So far, there is no cost to the State. The only cost I see is for the training course. After two years, this teacher — now a trained teacher and educational paychologist — is still on the staff of his or her school and like a shared remedial teacher he can go from one school to another, covering a number of schools in an area. In order to take advantage of demographic trends we could set up a school psychological service at no cost. I am simplifying the matter but life is never quite that simple. The Minister is aware of the line I am taking and knows it is possible to do what I have said by a process of in service education.
Last night I spoke with a person in Tallaght, a fully qualified teacher and child educational psychologist, who is teaching in a primary school. If the Department were prepared to take somebody like that — I am not sure how many of those people exist — they could start immediately. In terms of costing the scheme if we had to pay salaries — in the scheme I outlined there would not be a cost on salaries — started from scratch, brought in new people and created new jobs, for one year the scheme would cost slightly over £70,000, including the salary of the senior psychologist and two psychologists on a basic staff. The Department agree that the best way to do this is to put psychologists in teams of three because they would obviously cover a wider area than one psychologist and there would be a back-up research service.
I have taken you very briefly through the negotiations and the level of agreement that exist with all the parties on this issue. There is no doubt that there is need here but there is agreement on how that need should be met. The Minister agrees that this is the way to go about it. There is agreement on all sides that the pilot scheme should be set up. From everything we have seen the most obvious urban area in which to set up this service would be in the west County Dublin area from Tallaght-Clondalkin to Mulhuddart, but particularly in the area from Lady's Well to Clondalkin. The Minister knows how schools are developed in that area. There are huge housing estates, there are huge schools and there are many other problems but it would be appreciated if that movement were made. The Minister has agreed it should take place. She has also indicated — in a speech earlier in the year — that this is a scheme she would wish to set up and implement. It now seems that all that is needed is the nod to go ahead and start up the scheme. It would be a most progressive and most welcome development. We have outlined the need for it, the agreement that there is for setting it up, how little it would cost to do it and how much it would be appreciated. My final and most important point is that the children who are most in need would be the beneficiaries. We talk about people in need — that has become a cant phrase in the last couple of months. These are the people in greatest need because they are at the stage of greatest development. It is at that age that they need most help. This is the way that they could at least be given a direction. We might find out after setting up a pilot scheme that the State does not have the resources to meet the particular needs but at least it would help us to identify the needs and problems of pupils and allow us to go down the road to meeting those needs. I would ask the Minister to reply generously and positively to the matter.
We thought we had adjourned sine die, but naturally adjournment matters take precedence over any adjournment sine die.
First, I wanted to take this debate myself, despite having been here all day because I am interested in it. I had thought that there was another event to which I had to go, but the other event happened without me being there. That having happened, I still wanted to come back to the House. I apologise to my Minister of State for pre-emptorily removing him, having asked him to sit in but it is proof of my interest and my wish to inform myself about the matter.
I thank Senator O'Toole for raising this matter on the Adjournment, the last adjournment of this Seanad. I wish to say that, of course, I agree with the Senator. There is no quarrel between us on the need for this service. I have said so publicly so many times that people are beginning to wear out listening to me.
The need for this service was identified 14 years ago. I have looked back over records, submissions, meetings and so forth and see that it was identified back in the early to mid-seventies. Yet that need was ignored by successive administrations. When you think back you remember times that were better for innovative measures. Let us not talk about that, that is what happened in the past but to put the matter in context ongoing discussioins have gone on over a great number of years.
I know what Senator O'Toole means, because I taught for so many years at second level. You greet young children of 12 and 13 in September. When I started they were even a bit younger, only 11 perhaps, coming in to secondary school but they are now nearly all 12 years old. You saw then that many children had problems. I used to keep on saying to myself, if only those children had been got earlier, if only their various difficulties had been ascertained and worked upon and talked through with them and with their parents and with all of the relevant professional bodies, so many of them perhaps would not have developed the various difficulties they developed because they had now reached maturation, their behavioural patterns were set and they were subject to peer pressure about various matters. Because of puberty and all sorts of developments they were unable to get out of the spiral of deprivation and of behavioural problems which had started way back in their very early years in primary school. There is no doubt of that.
I have come across many rebellious teenagers but often in school you do not have the time to talk with them. However, if the opportunity arose to talk things through with them, you could often see the beginnings of where it had all happened, why it had happened and how it had happened. It often lead me to think that it was such a grave pity that they were not got in time. That sounds horrible, as if it was just a matter of catching them and grabbing them. I do not mean that at all. They just were not helped in time and there was not the professional expertise available to do it. There are not the facilities in the normal course of a school environment to do so. That is what lead me two years ago to put this item forward as a matter I wanted to do something about. Not long after coming into office I had a series of meetings with the Psychological Society at which I openly expressed my view as distinct from some views which were being put to me. I openly expressed the view that this programme should get underway.
In the Department at present we are preparing a response to the Central Review Committee on the Programme for National Recovery which seeks to identify how the Department of Education could respond to their responsibilities in treating areas of educational disadvantage, particularly at primary level but also to all over educational disadvantage. I intend to put into that submission the need for setting up the educational psychological service on a pilot basis as outlined in this Adjournment debate. The best way to address the matter would be to formally submit it to the social partners forum as set up under the Central Review Committee. It would form part of the Department of Education's proposals in response to a request by that review committee. I will be giving a direction in the next few days to the people involved in the preparation of that submission, that they include the two pilot projects; (1) urban and (2) rural-large town or small town setting.
If our submission and its various other components receive approval in various fora we will be enabled to move ahead. When we do get to set up the projects they will, of course, have to be professionally monitored and evaluated. The evaluative process of that would have to be enormously important because everything in a pilot project has to be evaluated. If we are starting on something which eventually will have far reaching implications for the wellbeing of young children and for their future directions, one would have to go about it the correct way. Professional evaluation would be of huge importance in monitoring and evaluating the service.
At the moment, a Chathaoirligh, just to put it succinctly, we are formulating a policy in response to how we would determine how to tackle educational disadvantage. I intend to give a direction that the consideration of the inclusion of two pilot projects be part of that submission. Hopefully we will be able to develop along the lines of the pilot project. I put it like that because there are processes yet to be gone through before that decision would finally be taken, but that is as I hope it would go.
On a day which has seen at one end of the scale the conferring of university status on two fine institutions, one in Dublin and one in Limerick, perhaps it is also important and significant that it may well mark the final road to the setting up of this important service for very disadvantaged young children.
I must say that I am very heartened by that response from the Minister and perhaps the Minister would indicate that I am interpreting her words properly. She says the Central Review Committee of the Programme for National Recovery have sought a response from her on the general issue of educational disadvantage and that part of the response of the Department of Education would be a proposal that a pilot programme be set up. I certainly cannot ask for any more than that from the Minister at this point because I know that that certainly is a significant advance. I am very grateful for that development because I also know that the Minister's Department must respond to the Central Review Committee in the next number of weeks.
The response must be in by mid-June.
There is agreement that if this pilot project is to be set up, the urban area should be west county Dublin.
No, that would not be the purpose of the debate. First of all it is hypothetical because it has to go through the various processes of which I spoke and the determination of the two areas would be a matter for me in consultation with my officials within the Department.
The Seanad adjourned at 5.40 p.m. sine die.
