The Government must decide whether it wants to have foreign or Irish doctors staffing the Irish health service in the future, according to the chairman of the Irish College of General Practitioners.
Commenting on this year's first-round CAO offers, which showed a further rise in the points required for medicine, Dr Eamonn Shanahan emphasised that he was not calling into question the competence or qualifications of foreign doctors.
But he said that, despite the "crying need" for doctors in Ireland, many vacant jobs were being filled by foreign doctors. This was because there were insufficient medical training places for Irish students.
He asked: "Do we wish to have a population of Irish doctors going into the future? If [ Minister for Health] Mary Harney wishes to have a health service staffed by foreigners, then let her say it."
Yesterday, The Irish Times revealed that the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, believes there is a clear need for an expansion in the number of medical places in the Republic from the current total of 308.
According to Dr Shanahan, the recommendations of a high-level report on the future of medical education here should be considered at the next meeting of the Cabinet. The report, by an expert group chaired by Prof Patrick Fottrell, recommended an increase in the number of medical training places to 725.
A manpower crisis now existed in the Irish healthcare system, Dr Shanahan said. One effect of this was that it was not possible to recruit the doctors needed to staff remote rural areas as well as inner-city practices.
Meanwhile, the Union of Students of Ireland yesterday said that there was a need for tighter control of the rented accommodation market. "Unscrupulous landlords, many of whom are not registered . . . continue to exploit students, charging extortionate rent," USI said.