Ard Fheis

Comhairleoir Críona Ní Dhálaigh, Cumann Emmet/Clarke, BAC ag caint in bhfábhar ruin 151

Published: 1 March, 2008

The National Education Psychological Service was set up in September 1999. The Government committed to staffing it with 200 psychologists, which it claimed would be enough to cover the whole country.
Nine years later, almost a full decade, we are less than three quarters of the way to that target. Approximately, half the primary schools in the country are not covered by the Service.
The Agency has particular responsibility for children with special educational needs but NEPS is hampered in its work because of an insufficient number of psychologists has been recruited. As a result it is not fully operational and it cannot reach its potential in terms of life-changing assistance for children.
If your school is one of the schools not covered by the Service then the alternative is for the school to commission assessments from private psychologists, a process that suffers from geographic and financial restrictions.
For example, there is not a single accredited private psychologist for carrying out these assessments in counties Cavan, Carlow, Leitrim or Longford.
And if a school is able to find a psychologist, is able to fit a child in need of assessment into already heavy schedules, they are restricted in the amount of assessments that they can do.
A school with 200 children is entitled to four assessments a year but I know of schools in Dublin who have already used up their allocation for this 2008.
At present charities are stepping into the void left by Government failure to adequately fund this much needed service. I am a member of the Dublin Inner City Partnership Board which has had to privately fund psychological assessments of children in the inner city as has the Saint Vincent de Paul Society who have privately funded over 1,000 psychological assessments of children and young people. This is an indictment of Government failure in this regard.

In 2006, 36 first years and 26 second year students in the 10 schools in the inner city's Second Level School Network had not received the assessment they needed by the end of October, 2 months into the school year. This leads to a critical delay in the students being able to participate in the curriculum, and every month of a delay increases the difficulty in bringing the students up to a minimum standard. Once the assessment is accepted, students have access to up to one hour's 1:1 tuition every day. This can make the difference between their staying in school and leaving early.
The children not fortunate enough to be assessed this year have to wait until 2009. The loss of a year has huge implications for children struggling in schools, setting back their social and education development with repercussions for the rest of their lives. Last year 23 suicides by children were reported to the NEPS. Psychologists were needed in over a hundred critical incidents during the 2006/2007 school year including assisting children with the deaths of people in the community or their own classmates.
When assessments are based not on need or on the rights of the child, but on where a child lives, on the length of the waiting line to see a private psychologist or on whether a school has used its assessments up for the year, the Minister for Education is failing in her duty to our schoolchildren.
Iarraim oraibh tacaíocht a thabhairt do ruin 151