The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, yesterday opened the UCD Catherine McAuley Education and Research Centre on the Mater Hospital campus in Eccles Street, Dublin.
The €8 million centre is part of an initiative to provide a modern teaching environment for undergraduate medical, nursing and healthcare students and postgraduates. Coupled with clinical research facilities, it is designed to provide health professionals with the rounded skills necessary to rival the best in Europe.
Equipped with lecture theatres, small group tutorial rooms, clinical skills laboratory and a computer-assisted learning laboratory it will, according to UCD, significantly improve the quality of health education and research, with longer term benefits for patient care by the strengthening of hand-in-hand medical education and clinical research.
The development, which occupies Georgian houses donated by the Sisters of Mercy, was funded by UCD, the Mater Hospital, the Sisters of Mercy and the Higher Education Authority. When it is completed, it will tie in with Mater/Temple Street Hospital's new postgraduate education centre and ultimately to UCD's planned Clinical Research Centre - the second phase opening next year will include a genome resource unit.
According to UCD president Dr Hugh Brad, the McAuley Centre represents a new and deepening relationship between UCD and its teaching hospitals, which is necessary if Irish medical education is to remain internationally pre-eminent.