Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Question 51: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his views on relaxing, on a once-off basis, the matriculation requirements for students (details supplied) who are repeating their leaving certificate with a view to pursuing medicine in university in view of the fact that some repeat students may not have been aware that their successful attempts at passing English, Irish or mathematics in previous years would preclude them from making a Central Applications Office application to the new graduate entry procedure for medicine courses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7904/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy refers to the new regime for admission to medicine in the universities which came into operation this year. To be eligible to study medicine one must now attain a minimum of 480 points in the Leaving Certificate and sit a special admissions test. A combination of the Leaving Certificate CAO points and the marks in the admission test determine one's placing in the competition. Moreover, the matriculation requirements (pass in Irish, English and Mathematics) and the CAO points must be achieved in a single sitting of the Leaving Certificate examination.

The admission requirements for any third level course are a matter for the relevant institution to determine independently and it would not be appropriate for the Minister to intervene in the arrangements, which in the case of medicine, was agreed by the representatives of the medical schools and approved by the Academic Councils of their respective institutions. Part of the rationale for the new entry mechanism is to alleviate the pressure that was on those students wishing to study medicine to achieve near perfect Leaving Certificate results. One of the factors driving the high points required for courses such as medicine was the incidence of students repeating the Leaving Certificate to gain sufficient points to obtain a place.

The practice had developed that once a student had met the basic matriculation requirements for medicine in one Leaving Certificate sitting they would elect to take other subjects, (sometimes perceived to be less difficult) in their repeat year, thereby increasing their chances of securing the points necessary. In any given year repeat students would obviously have an advantage over students doing the Leaving Certificate for the first time. The new entry requirement addresses this issue and is considered to be more advantageous in general to students than those it replaces. It is not open to the Minister to make an exception for repeat Leaving Cert students by exempting them from any of the new requirements. Such a move would also confer a fundamentally unfair advantage on such students over those sitting the Leaving Certificate for the first time in 2009.