The High Court challenge to the number of undergraduate medicine places allocated to EU students is causing a ripple in the university sector. Gráinne Fallerreports
A High Court challenge to the quota on the number of undergraduate medicine places allocated to EU students is already creating a stir across the university sector.
The challenge is being taken by a 20-year-old pharmacy student Frank Prendergast jnr. Prendergast repeated the Leaving Cert this year and, having failed to get the requisite CAO points, he then applied to the universities for a place as a non-EU student, offering to pay the same tuition fees associated with that status.
However, he was refused entry because of a quota on the number of Irish and EU students that universities can accept on an undergraduate medical degree programme.
Prendergast claims that this quota is unconstitutional. His legal team will also argue that his rights have been breached as colleges cannot consider him for a place on the same basis as a non-EU student who may well be less qualified than him but for whom the quota does not apply because of his or her nationality.
"It is an interesting argument," says Brian Mooney, the former president of the Institute for Guidance Counsellors. "Is there any way constitutionally to deny a place to an Irish citizen like this?"
While entry requirements to medicine are due to change in September 2009, Mooney does not believe they will necessarily make much difference to aspiring medical students. The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has proposed that students' CAO points of 480-550 be combined with the results of an internationally recognised admission test for medicine to determine who gains entry into medicine. "A student who gets 480 points would have to do much, much better in the aptitude test than the student who gets 550 CAO points if he or she is to secure a place," Mooney says.
Part of the reason for the hugely competitive nature of entry into medicine is that places for Irish and EU students have been severely limited since the 1970s. Back then it was decided that Ireland needed to fill 300 medical places every year in order to adequately meet local demand. At the time there was also a national quota of 28 places available for overseas (now non-EU) students.
However, in the late 1980s, the overseas student quota was abolished for economic reasons and universities increased their intake. Free fees prompted a greater increase and, by 2003, the non-EU intake had ballooned to 477 while places for the Irish and EU students remained almost static at 305.
A severe shortage of Irish medical graduates has led to a change in the system and over the next few years the Irish and EU undergraduate quota will increase to 485 with overseas intake decreasing to 275. Postgraduate medical degree places will bring the total number of Irish and EU medical places up to 725.
However, if Prendergast wins his case, in theory, Irish students will be able to compete directly with overseas students to pay for places outside of the Irish and EU quota. Sources within the universities have expressed concern that any extra Irish medical students on top of the quota could well be surplus to the demands of the system. "The numbers are regulated for a reason," says Prof Gerard Loftus, Dean of Medicine in NUIG. "A third of my class who qualified in 1978 are still working overseas because there were no jobs for them here. We were spending years training the brightest and best students only to export them.
"Of course, it has been recognised that we need more Irish and EU graduates but there has to be long-range planning in medicine."
Dr Róisín Healy is the spokeswoman for Medical School Entry Ireland, a group which has been lobbying about this issue for several years. She maintains that it is impossible to predict how many doctors Ireland will need.
"Manpower projections are notoriously difficult to make . . . If a student wants to pay for tuition and work abroad if necessary, let them make that choice," she says.
The idea of free and paid-for places on an academic course is far from new.
Mooney explains: "The fact is we already have a free market in other areas such as law. Somebody who goes to Griffith College does exactly the same subjects, sits exactly the same exams and has the same opportunities to work as a solicitor or barrister as someone who went to TCD.
"The only difference if one was to pay for medical tuition is that while the two law students are in different buildings, the two medical students would be under one roof," he said.
Some university sources are concerned that a situation such as this might lead to subsequent challenges over fees, but Healy insists that it is not really an argument.
"The choice isn't between Irish who pay and Irish who don't pay. The choice is between Irish who are willing to pay and overseas students who are willing to pay," she says. "A non-EU student can secure a place on a course here with lesser qualifications - even if he or she has been educated in Ireland and has a Leaving Cert. Why shouldn't Irish students have the chance to compete for those places?"