School leavers who wish to study medicine in two years' time are likely to face an aptitude test to determine their suitability, it was announced yesterday.
It is envisaged that all students with a specific number of points in their Leaving Certificate will be eligible to sit the test. An expert group to be set up by the Higher Education Authority will decide the appropriate number of points that provide eligibility for the test. These changes will be implemented from 2008 "at the earliest".
They were presented by Ministers for Health and Education, Mary Harney and Mary Hanafin in Dublin yesterday where plans to create more than double the places in medical schools for Irish and EU students were also outlined.
Places for Irish and EU students were capped at 305 in 1978 so that while the Republic trains more than 700 doctors a year over 60 per cent of those are from outside the EU, and many return to their home countries after training.
To address this the plan now is to increase training places for Irish and EU students from 305 to 725 over a four-year period. The first tranche of new places comes onstream this September, when an extra 70 places will be available. A further 40 will be provided next year and another 35 in both 2008 and 2009.
Some 240 of the additional places will be set aside for graduates who have completed a primary degree and now want to study medicine.
The graduate entry programme will begin next September when 60 places will become available by this route. The expert group will also develop an aptitude test for selecting those who want to go the graduate entry route. It is not yet clear if these students will be entitled to grants.
The package of reforms, which are based on two reports from groups chaired by Prof Pat Fottrell and Dr Jane Buttimer, will cost around €200 million.
Ms Hanafin said the current single route of entry to medicine, combined with limits on places, had meant the pressure on students aiming to study medicine to achieve "an almost perfect Leaving Cert" had become "almost unbearable". She said the introduction of aptitude tests should help alleviate this.
She said the expert group, which is to report back by the summer, would look at whether students who got more points than required to sit the aptitude test should get extra credits. The Fottrell report suggested students should attain 450 points before being allowed sit the aptitude test. But the increase in places is unlikely to lead to significantly lower CAO points levels for medicine.
Ms Hanafin also said yesterday that while she may consider looking at alternative routes for students into other high points courses she would "not rush into it".
The Buttimer report confirms that medical emigration from Ireland is much higher than from other countries such as the UK. But it established that some 700 Irish trained doctors based abroad may at least consider returning to work here. Graduate retention strategies were required to be put in place.
For many doctors who leave, the main barrier to returning is insufficient consultant posts, its research found. The report recommended that more of these be provided and Ms Harney said the numbers of consultants needed to be doubled to 4,000 and the numbers of junior doctors needed to be halved to 2,000.
The Council of Medical Deans, which represents the five Irish medical schools, welcomed the expansion in medical places for school leavers and graduates.
Liz McManus, Labour's health spokeswoman, also welcomed the increase in medical training places but said she was disappointed only 70 places would be created this year.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said any increase in training places was welcome but the pace of change was too slow.