Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 235: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will report on the graduate medical school at University Limerick, and the progress on other graduate medical schools; her plans to integrate those graduates to the health system here on their qualification as doctors; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18557/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The provision of third-level medical education, including undergraduate medical school places, is a matter in the first instance for the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O'Keefe T.D., advised by the Higher Education Authority.

Government policy, based on the Report of the Working Group on Undergraduate Medical Education and Training (Fottrell) and the Report of the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Group (Buttimer), published in February 2006, provides for the number of medical school places for EU students to be increased from 305 to 725. This will be made up of a new graduate entry stream, which will provide an additional 240 EU medical school places per annum on the basis of 60 per year over a 4 year period, and increasing the number of EU undergraduate places to 485 on the basis of substitution of 180 non-EU places.

A total of 170 extra medical school places have been provided between 2006 and 2007 for Irish/EU students in the existing undergraduate courses and in the new graduate entry programme (110 undergraduate places and 60 graduate entry places). A further 95 places (35 undergraduate places and 60 graduate entry places) will be made available in 2008 with the remaining 155 places (35 undergraduate places and 120 graduate entry places) coming on stream over the next 2 years.

A new medical school has been established at the University of Limerick, bringing the total number of medical schools to six. The programme of graduate entry to medicine, which commenced in 2007, has provided 30 EU graduate entry places at the University of Limerick. An additional 20 EU graduate entry places will be provided in 2008 with a further 45 EU graduate entry places planned over the next 2 years. This will bring the total number of EU graduate entry places that will be available in the University of Limerick to 95.

The plan, approved by Government, provides for an expansion of intern posts from 2011 to accommodate an eventual 240 EU places from the new graduate entry stream. There are currently sufficient numbers of intern posts in the health service to place any Irish/EU students graduating in the next 3 years.

Appointments of doctors to work in the Irish health service are made by the Health Service Executive and the public voluntary hospitals concerned. Vacancies for medical personnel are advertised in the public press and in the appropriate medical journals, including the classified section of the British Medical Journal.