Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Deputy for bringing this up because it is an issue I have been engaging on quite a bit. I have met a number of students, either studying medicine as graduate entrants or considering doing that. I am concerned because the argument they would put forward to me is that there is benefit both to the health service and to them as future doctors in having undertaken a degree, perhaps, in the first instance, that is not in medicine. For example, I met a young man recently who decided to do a science degree and then go into medicine by that route but there is a much increased financial cost should he choose to go that way. Let me share some of my thoughts on this.

My Department is committed to the provision of graduates for the health service through undergraduate and postgraduate provision. Progression is a key tenet of the SUSI scheme and section 2 of the Student Support Act 2011 defines "progression" as "the process by which learners may transfer from one course to another course where the award that may be made on the successful completion of the second mentioned course is of a higher level." That is the challenge we encounter at present, that somebody entering graduate-entry medicine is entering at the same level as perhaps another undergraduate degree that he or she did. The student accessing graduate-entry medicine will, as a matter of course, hold a level 8 qualification prior to the entry and completion of a graduate-entry medicine degree confers a further level 8 qualification on that individual. At present, that is where we are legislatively stuck.

Students pursuing a second degree course are not eligible for free-fees funding or for student grants and, therefore, graduate-entry medicine students have not qualified for these programmes since the introduction of the courses. However, to widen access to graduate-entry medicine programmes and to assist the students pursuing these programmes, the fees of EU students enrolled in graduate-entry medicine are partly subsidised by the State via the Higher Education Authority, HEA. As of the 2020 academic year, the State contribution is €11,524 per graduate-entry student per year and the balance of fees is payable by students.

I will come back on this in a moment to look at some of the mechanisms.

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