Lobby group seeks more medicine places for school leavers

THE Government must work to increase the number of medicine places available to school leavers, a campaign group has urged.

Health Minister Mary Harney announced in November that 70 additional places, on top of the 308 available each year, would be open to Irish and EU students next autumn.

However, it is unclear how many of these will be accessible to Leaving Certificate students applying through the CAO, for which students must fill in their course choices by February 1.

Dr Roisín Healy, whose group Medical School Entry has been campaigning for the cap on places for EU students to be abolished, said this is not good enough.

“An extra 70 places over five medical schools around the country is very little,” she said.

“The Hanly report of 2004 recommended that more than 700 places on medicine be available.”

It is understood that Ms Harney and Education Minister Mary Hanafin will soon announce a plan to double the number of places by 2010. But the cost of the clinical placements for these students may leave medical schools at a loss, as they will lose the income derived from fee-paying non-EU students.

It also remains unclear what proportion of these increased places will be open to students who already have primary degrees, or if they would have to pay fees or be eligible for maintenance grants.

The wide area of medical education was the subject of an expert group report, on which the two ministers are basing their considerations.

The measures are being carefully awaited by students preparing for the Leaving Certificate next June and in the next few years.

The short supply of places on courses in medicine has meant they are the most difficult to access.

For fewer than 300 places open to CAO applicants last year, there were almost 2,100 students who chose medicine as their first preference. As a result, the lowest points requirement was 570 out of a maximum 600 in six subjects.

There are also moves in some colleges to set up graduate-only medical entry, including a new school of medicine proposed for the University of Limerick.