Maurice Hayes (Independent)

This problem could be overcome by giving them a bursary if they undertook to work as GPs or elsewhere in the public sector.

I too am concerned about the concentration on a high number of points. I welcome that the Minister has said that we will have some system for people with more than 450 points. We may as well have a lottery as any other system. No system can predict who will be a good doctor as there is such a range in the profession. I would favour establishing another medical school, perhaps in Limerick, which would concentrate on public health and preventive health among GPs and others in primary care. The other medical schools are all built on the curative model.

I ask the Minister of State to consider the issue of clinical placements for these people, which will be quite difficult. Private hospitals that ride on the back of the public sector in so many places should bear their cost of training through providing teaching places. I ask the Minister of State to consider medical students who get clinical practice across the Border — in both directions. Hospitals in Derry and Newry and others of which I am aware are very glad to take students, particularly from Galway, and it would be a pity if any changes we made were to inhibit that.