Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The problem is, as I have outlined, I met a group of students who said they had been discriminated against on the basis that they are Shia and not Sunni. Professor Kelly referred to the distinction between the different hospitals. No Shia muslims work in King Hamad hospital. For anybody wondering why someone did or did not get a job, whatever about saying that the qualifications of a particular Shia individual might not stand up when applying for a job, the notion that no Shia Muslims would be qualified for a job is hard to believe. We have to take that into account. There is active discrimination and that is accepted by the international community. Bahrain has rightly been criticised by independent groups for that.

The key issue is the interaction between education and the political environment. Ms Doyle made a point about drawing a distinction between the political situation and education. I can understand that but there is only a logic to that if the two are distinct and separate. The problem with Bahrain is that they are not. Whatever about the academic aspect of the campus - there are concerns from that point of view in terms of the safety of staff because the security forces have had interactions with students and complaints have been made - the hospitals are also a key learning environment for students in RCSI colleges. They are not independent and what medics went through has been well documented. The treatment of injured protestors and giving television interviews are imprisonable offences in Bahrain. I welcome any developments that might make it a more democratic or fair society.

One of the doctors, Dr. al-Ekri, who was arrested, had trained and worked in Dublin and he is still in prison for treating injured protestors and talking about it in 2011. Another human rights defender, Nabeel Rajab, is in prison for sending a tweet. This is not a free society. I do not dispute that, economically, it is a good society. It is a well off country and traditionally women have been well educated, which is positive in the Middle East, but it has had the same prime minister since 1971 and power in the country is held by one family. I appreciate that is a characteristic of the Middle East. While there has been good aspects to political progress in Bahrain, the repression over the past few years has been appalling and it has not improved. Talks have been on and off for the past three years.

One cannot distinguish between the political and education and training environments when they are intertwined. I am not calling on RCSI to withdraw from Bahrain but I am calling for a proper independent system to ensure the education being provided there is up to standard. I am not basing my comments on my short visit to the country or my political views but on the independent commission and the international criticism of human rights in the country. I do not see how what is happening there could be consistent with the NUI code of conduct, given the militarisation of the learning environment. This is a serious issue and it is damaging to the reputation of Irish education. I urge the Medical Council to be careful in respect of its involvement. While internationalisation is positive, anything that puts our reputation at risk also damages the overall project.