A Fine Gael national survey of primary and secondary schools has indicated that average waiting times for psychological assessments for school children exceed 6 months, with even longer waiting times in many cases.
More than one quarter of schools are waiting more than 9 months for their students to get the assessments that they require.
Based on the respondents to the survey there are more than 1,100 children waiting to see a psychologist to have their needs assessed.
The 424 respondents represent approximately 10 per cent of the total school numbers in the country, highlighting the fact that up to 10,000 school children may currently be waiting to be assessed.
Ms Olwyn Enright, Fine Gael spokesperson on Education and Science said: "These survey results would place Minister Dempsey right at the bottom of any Ministerial League table. Based on the replies to this survey the average waiting time for psychological assessments is well over 6 months."
"To make matters even more difficult, many schools are allocated a very small number of psychological assessments per annum by the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS). They must prioritise their cases, and when they have used the number of allocated assessments for the year, any other students requiring assessment just have to wait indefinitely," she added.
According to Ms Enright one principal of a school that caters specifically for students with special needs wrote to her saying that some pupils have not been assessed for 8 to 10 years.
Another wrote stating: "We set a priority list at the beginning of the year. The first 3 or 4 will be catered for, hopefully within 6 months. The rest may not be assessed for much longer".