Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not get to this question in my opening statement, so I am grateful to the Deputy for asking the question. There is a group of 60 Irish medical and dental students who were forced to abandon their studies in Ukraine for their safety. My officials - and I thank Mr. Ian McKenna and his team - have been liaising with the deans of the medical schools in Ireland. Those deans are currently undertaking an assessment of the medical schools in Ukraine. They are trying to match where the students were with their medical education in Ukraine with the equivalent in the Irish education system. As I have suggested, a key element of this process is understanding the alignment between the Ukrainian programme and the Irish systems of medical and dentistry education. Where issues arise regarding the accreditation by the professional bodies, this will allow us to see how we can best facilitate those who fled in continuing their studies. However, to be clear, we maintain our commitment to ensuring that they can continue their studies. We have written to them or are about to write to them. We have written to them directly as recently as last week. My Department has been painstakingly making sure that we keep in regular contact with them and that we keep them informed. We wrote to them, as my note says, as recently as last Friday. I will send the Deputy and the committee some more detail on this.