David Norris (Independent)

I wish to share time with Senator Henry. I welcome the Minister for Education and Science to the House. She will want to address the situation I am going to outline. She is aware of it because one of my constituents has been in touch with her about it — the disadvantage faced by Irish applicants to Irish medical schools who must compete for entry with people from outside the European Union.

A working group on undergraduate medical education was established in 2003 under Professor Patrick Fottrell. He drew some remarkable conclusions and I was unaware until I was approached about this of how disastrous is the situation. More than half the places go to people from outside the EU. A minority of medical students in this country are Irish, even though there is a yawning gap for doctors throughout the community. The group made recommendations on extra funding and I am sure the Minister has some plans for that.

We invest in medical education but not to the extent of other countries. Comparisons have been drawn with Canada, which spends two or three times more than us, and Britain. Our medical schools only remain open because they are selling medical educations to people from outside the country. This is wrong. In 2003, 516 of the 831 first year places in the Republic's medical schools were allocated to non-EU students, meaning that 83% of fee income came from overseas. The Exchequer that year provided a miserly €2.36 million in first year fees. Most people do not know this is the case. We can contrast this with the support given to veterinary medicine. Animals are subsidised to the tune of €26,604 per annum, while the subvention to medical students is only €9,000, roughly a third. This is astonishing.

This situation also acts to the disadvantage of developing countries because we are taking their students, educating them and often we must then employ them to make up our own short-fall. Almost 500 Irish students who should qualify every year are denied places they should have when their academic attainment is taken into account. The chairman of the Irish College of General Practitioners, Dr. Éamon Shanahan, says that a third of GPs will retire in the near future and they will not be replaced because the system is not flexible enough. For over 25 years we have capped the Irish and EU student entry at 305 places per year. That must stop.

I will move now from the general to the particular. I have been in correspondence with a person whose family is well know to me. Her father was a doctor, as is her sister, and her son now wishes to enter the profession. The latter attained 570 points in his leaving certificate, an achievement which should qualify him to study medicine, but he did not gain a place. Students from outside the EU with 450 points can gain admittance to medical courses. A large number of students from outside the State come in on substantially less points than are required by Irish students, who are thereby squeezed out of the system. I cannot but believe this is wrong.

There is yet another form of discrimination in respect of those candidates who take the A-level examination. These students only take four subjects. Although they are sometimes older than most leaving certificate students, they are awarded 150 points per A grade. However, no distinction is made at A-level between an A1 and an A2. Thus, an A-level student could attain 600 points for four 85% grades whereas an Irish student would receive only 360 points for four A2s. In a roughly comparable situation, we discriminate against our own students in terms of how their academic attainment is evaluated.

Prospective Irish medical students are, therefore, disadvantaged in a number of ways. These relate to the problem with regard to the way in which scores are evaluated; the cap in numbers; and the fact that Irish students are in a minority within our medical institutions. Moreover, society is disadvantaged because we do not have sufficient doctors to cope with the requirements of the community.

I see a worried expression on the Minister's face. We know she is an excellent Minister; we have witnessed this in performance. We have seen the way she handles matters and believe she is the very person, with the type of vigorous approach she has shown in tackling other equally different problems, to set about dealing with this issue. It is a source of great regret to me that the young person to whom I referred did not attain the place he desired. He is a person from a medical background, which can be useful because such persons know the situation. He would have a good manner if he is anything like the other family members with whom I am acquainted. Having attained all that should be required in terms of points, he was nevertheless not accepted because our third level institutions are forced, in order to keep their doors open, to sell student spaces to people from outside the European Union. This is a problem the Minister inherited. It would redound to her credit if she could do something to solve it.