Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I do not want to get involved in this argument. I have not been to Bahrain. I have read about it and I have listened to my colleagues. Is education not meant to be about, above and outside politics? Is not one of the principles of education to be about knowledge, training, skill and the development of freedom? I agree with Professor Kelly that one of the best ways to bring about peace, ease, communication, equality of opportunity in education, justice and freedom is the training and nurturing of young people, especially in the area of medicine, which sometimes supersedes sociology, philosophy and psychology because it is about life and death and holding human beings sacred, as it says in one of the RCSI's charters, regardless of age, creed, colour, prejudice or sexuality. Education through medicine is one way to bring about what Senator Power is correctly seeking. I commend Professor Kelly on what he does given all the troubles in the country in which the RCSI finds itself. Education, especially in medicine and all the tributaries that it allows, is for new generations consistently assessed and accredited every five to six years and that is the only way sometimes to get through regimes that are caught in old ways and mores.