The University of Limerick (UL) has been given Cabinet approval to establish a graduate medical school, in what will be seen as a significant coup.
The new faculty will allow graduates from other disciplines to train for careers in medicine.
UL will admit the first 30 students to the four-year programme in September this year. The intake will increase to more than 100 students the following year.
However, an international assessment panel has decided that no postgraduate places will be allocated this year to the Irish Universities and Medical Schools Consortium, representing UCD, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway and UCC.
The outcome of the tendering process is a major embarrassment for UCD in particular, which had signalled that its graduate entry programme would begin next September.
It is understood there was some annoyance in Government circles that UCD "jumped the gun" in this regard.
Last night, there were some recriminations about the consortium's failure to secure any postgraduate places. One senior academic said the four universities were "paying the price for operating a cosy cartel".
Third-level colleges had been invited to tender for places on the new graduate-entry programme.
The international panel's recommendations were as follows:
u UL should be approved an intake of 30 students in 2007, rising to a maximum of 108.
u The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland should be approved an intake of 30 students in 2007, rising to an enrolment of 40 EU students.
u The remaining 92 places should be allocated to institutions which are part of the Irish Universities and Medical Schools Consortium, but only after the four universities submit revised bids.
Entry to the postgraduate programme is open to students who have already completed an honours undergraduate degree in any academic discipline and achieved a minimum 2.1 award.
The new places are to be phased in over a four-year period, commencing with an intake of 60 students this year and rising to the target intake of 240 students per annum.
The new initiative is in line with proposals from an expert group on medical education chaired by Prof Patrick Fottrell, a former president of NUI Galway.
Pressure for a review of medical education has been growing because of the strain on the health service and the apparently inexorable rise in the CAO points needed to take the subject.
The introduction of the graduate-entry programme is part of overall reforms that will more than double the number of medical education places available to Irish students. Under this initiative, an additional 110 undergraduate places had already been approved for 2006 and 2007 across the medical schools.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said the announcement marked "another significant milestone in the transformation of medical education in Ireland. It is also an historic day for the University of Limerick and I . . . congratulate the university."