I want to raise the issue of the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. This service offers a wide range of supports with regard to behavioural and emotional difficulties, critical incidents in schools and in meeting the needs of vulnerable children. The service also has an important role in providing educational assessments and necessary reports in order to assist schools in identifying the needs of individual pupils with special educational needs. Under the current system these assessments are critical so children can access basic and vital supports and resources to pursue the best education.

The Education Acts say that every child in the State should be entitled to a high-quality education, but how can they attain a high quality-education when there are not the necessary supports in place? It makes no sense. The practice we have is certainly not in accordance with the Acts. Since 2010 we have seen a cut in funding to the service from €22.5 million to €18.25 million in 2016. It was ironic that only yesterday in the Chamber we had Deputy Micheál Martin crying crocodile tears about the lack of funding for NEPS services, when it was Fianna Fáil that cut the services in the first place when it was in power. Fianna Fáil, despite all its spin, bluster and meaningless waffle, will facilitate the ongoing lack of investment by supporting budget 2017.

The cuts in funding to the NEPS service have had a huge impact on children. As a former acting school principal I know only too well the frustration of trying to secure resources for children under our current system. I know the difficulties that schools face in choosing between the students with regard to resources. We are told that we can only refer one or two children for assessment in a particular year. I have felt the frustration and sheer disappointment of knowing that a child could achieve so much, and could achieve his or her potential with the right, basic supports. They cannot access these supports if there is not an assessment report in place, so the report is needed. We have a cruel situation where parents and schools that can afford it send the children for private assessments.

Not every parent or every school has this luxury. Children from disadvantaged communities are left behind and in some cases they wait years for the proper supports and they fall behind and fall through the cracks in our education system. I have raised the issue on a number of occasions, most recently last week in the Chamber. The budget, supported by Fianna Fáil, allocates no additional funding to this vital service in 2017. How can the Minister possibly justify the lack of additional funding for this service in this year's budget?

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue because it is very important. I assure the Deputy we are recruiting extra people to NEPS and it is within our provision. As part of the programme for Government we have committed to increasing the NEPS service by 25%. This year in the budget we have made provision for 900 additional resource teachers. This is specifically designed to reform the system so there will not be the same extensive reliance on the assessments to which the Deputy rightly describes as often having arbitrary access. The current system is highly dependent on these assessments and we will move away from them in a new model developed by Eamon Stack and the NCSE. The advantage of this model is that it will give schools a guarantee of the type of support they will get, based on the individual needs of the children. They will not have to rely on psychological assessments and will have other data to use to provide this allocation.

This is a very progressive move, which will free up the services of NEPS to provide the type of whole school support for which it was intended. It was not intended to do assessments only: it was intended to support schools in their ability to deliver to children with special educational needs. I am proud that even in the recent very difficult years we got a 46% increase in the number of resource teachers for children with special needs and a 22% increase in the number of special needs assistants. This is a real investment and commitment by the Government to try to support these children. The new model, which frees up the NEPS resources to do more holistic support for schools, which will see an investment over the coming years in more NEPS staff, will be a win-win, with a better outcome for those children who depend on the services. It is an exciting programme and I am very glad to have been able to get the funding this year to commit to this roll-out, which will make a difference to the type of experience the Deputy had in her school in the past.

Why is the funding not mentioned in the budget? Too many children in the State need a report with recommendations to get accommodation in exams, and teachers need the reports to plan. I welcome the idea of the resource teaching model, and we will see how it will work, but the fact it will be nine months before it comes into effect is not good enough. Children are waiting. As it is, it is dire, and the fact they must wait another nine months for a service which may not work, and I have my doubts, is not good enough.

The new resource allocation model should not be used to paper over the cracks caused by the chronic lack of investment in our education system. Educational assessments and other services provided by NEPS will still be critical to provide proper supports for vulnerable children and children with special needs. The programme for Government states a clear commitment to increase funding for the NEPS service, but it is not mentioned in the budget. I do not buy this and I do not accept it as an excuse. Sinn Féin proposed an investment of €3.5 million in our budget. Will the Minister commit to providing additional resources to NEPS, particularly for assessments? I know about this as a teacher, and many teachers have told me they do not buy into the airy-fairy notion of other resources being put in place which may not work.

As I indicated, the programme for Government commits to a 25% increase in the staffing in NEPS and this is one thing we will implement. We are also trying to move to have less reliance on the types of assessments to which the Deputy rightly said disadvantaged children have less fair access. We are moving away from this high reliance. For example, we are simplifying accommodation of exams to make it easier for children who get accommodation at junior certificate to carry it into the leaving certificate. We are trying to free up NEPS to do the type of real work that needs to be done, not writing reports about submissions to get access, but to do work to support schools. At the same time, we are increasing the commitment to resource teachers.

The material in the school to provide those children with the supports they need, therefore, will be increased and we will free up NEPS staff to do the work that was intended. This approach should be welcomed and I look forward to working with the Deputy at the committee on this roll-out, which will make a difference. We are committed to increasing NEPS staff in the programme for Government and this year we are recruiting within our existing provision.