Professor Cathal Kelly:

I thank Senator Jim D'Arcy, Deputy Griffin and the Chairman. The New York Timescolumnist, Thomas Friedman, has said the best lesson from the Arab spring is that evolution is more effective than revolution. Graduating, year in year out, a cohort of young professional people, doctors and nurses, is a very significant contribution to evolution in those countries. That is where we hang our hat.

In terms of Deputy Griffin's comments about our website and so on, I must look at it again. RCSI Bahrain is a separate website. There is a lot of stuff on YouTube from our various students which is quite informative and uplifting. We are not an NGO; we are a medical health sciences institutione are not human rights activists and we do not set out to be human rights activists. I will elaborate on that to address the Chairman's comments. Our curriculum is hung around our medical graduate profile and what we are trying to address there is first knowledge in biomedical sciences, knowledge in the clinical sciences, knowledge and skill around clinical competencies, knowledge and skill around public and international health and then perhaps, most important, personal and professional development, which takes into account communication, teamwork and medical ethics. I could happily read our ethics teaching document.

In terms of Deputy Griffin's comments about our website and so on, I must look at it again. RCSI Bahrain is a separate website. There is a lot of stuff on YouTube from our various students which is quite informative and uplifting. We are not an NGO; we are a medical health sciences institution but we are not human rights activists and we do not set out to be human rights activists. I will elaborate on that to address the Chairman's comments. Our curriculum is hung around our medical graduate profile and what we are trying to address is, first, knowledge in biomedical sciences, knowledge in the clinical sciences, knowledge and skill around clinical competencies, knowledge and skill around public and international health and then perhaps, most important, personal and professional development, which takes into account communication, teamwork and medical ethics. I could happily read our ethics teaching document.