Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is great to see the Minister of State, she is always welcome. She stated:

That said, the title of "university" is highly prized and rightly so. Its integrity, in the context of safeguarding the reputation for excellence that attaches to the Irish higher education system, must be protected.

I agree with her. When it comes to integrity, we need to listen to what Deputy Ó Laoghaire said, but, more importantly, perhaps we need to listen to Ceartas, Irish Lawyers for Human Rights, who have called on the Irish Medical Council not to approve the RCSI's Bahrain campus re-accreditation because of the widespread abuses carried out by one of the most evil regimes in the world.

The Bahraini regime rules with an iron fist. As my colleague said, many former medical students have been arrested, tortured, and imprisoned, for simply doing what was demanded of them through their hippocratic oath, yet Bahrain continues to violate their medical neutrality and the RCSI has refused to condemn the regime for this. Ceartas have plainly stated that RCSI Bahrain has "an education programme integrated with health systems connected to torture, discriminatory conduct in the provision of healthcare and employment of medical staff, and consistent violation of the rights to freedom of expression". That is too serious to ignore. I am glad the Minister of State mentioned that "the application has been rigorously scrutinised and examined". In that regard, perhaps she could tell us what the response from the RCSI has been to its silence to date, and its complicity through its silence in some of the most horrific human rights abuses happening in the world today.