FIANNA Fail is committed to the introduction of a national psychological service board which would be responsible for providing psychiatric services to all schools.
Introducing the party's document on the service at the INTO congress in Killarney, the Fianna Fail spokesman on education, Mr Micheal Martin, accused the Department of Education of a "scandalous lack of provision in the psychological area".
According to a recent report by the IMPACT trade union, which represents psychologists working in the Department of Education, the ratio of psychologists to primary pupils is 1:7,500, where psychological services are available. Some 80 per cent of primary schoolchildren do not have access to an educational psychological service.
Mr Martin endorsed the views expressed in the IMPACT report. He said Department of Education psychologists were engaged in answering Dail questions and dealing with examinations when their primary role was one of "assessment and diagnosis in dealing with problems at a psychological level in a holistic manner".
The independent service proposed by Fianna Fail would free psychologists from other duties and responsibilities and enable them to concentrate on their primary role, said Mr Martin. A director of psychological services would have overall responsibility for developing and managing the service in schools, and additional psychologists could be provided through the demographic dividend by converting teacher posts to psychologist posts with proper in-service training.