Minister defends medical student loan plan tied to working in Irish health service

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Higher Education James Lawless has defended government plans to introduce a loan scheme for medical students on the condition that recipients go on to work in the Irish health service.

Lawless also rejected an assertion on Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show that he was holding lower-income medical students hostage.

The graduate loan scheme, which was first reported in The Irish Times in February, was an effort to keep Irish medical graduates in Ireland because of concerns that many graduates go overseas, he said.

“Very few people can afford the kind of fee if you're talking about graduating into medicine. It's not easy for any family, I would suggest, regardless of whether you're in the income strata.

“Of course, the higher up you go, the more accessible it may be. But the gist of the moment is, lower income students are not pursuing graduate entry medicine full stop.

"They don't have the means to access the courses. They don't have the means to pay those kind of fees as graduate entrants. And there's a gap there. And year on year, you see this being propagated, so the graduate entry courses are becoming the reserve of the more affluent families.

“And I think that's when we want to maximise our health care workforce. We want to make it accessible to as many as possible. And that's a fundamental goal of education also, to broaden that point.”

The minister said there were a number of reasons why some graduates wanted to travel abroad to work post qualification, for some it was a rite of passage and benefitted those who had the opportunity to do so.

“But I also think that for those who may be in two minds, for those who would like to stay but maybe need a bit of support, I think at a time when we need to maximise the working health care population, it's incumbent on us to put some kind of incentives out to say, are there other things we can do to encourage people to stay?”

Lawless also pointed out that medical courses were changing to reflect the current situation in the health system with UCG offering a course with a focus on rural and remote medicine.

“I think that's important that we continue to broaden the pathways. But in the case of the graduate entrance, there is an issue that people cannot access the course at the moment because of the fees, because it is a second-hand degree.

“The fees are covered in full for all students at undergraduate level. But for the graduate entry, it is a barrier to entry that I've been made very aware of. And students and student unions have asked me to examine measures like this. I think it's entirely reasonable that we would do it.”

Lawless said that the loan was a proposal at this stage and was at the policy document stage with a number of options of how it could be formulated. It was an issue he was proposing as a “policy concept” and that he would be examining in the context of the upcoming budget.

“This could be a long play. This is not going to be an overnight fix. But it is something that's being addressed. There are other ways it's being addressed also.

“For example, the commercial banks offered student loans to graduate entry medical students up until 2022. They stopped doing that. I've engaged with the banks to see why did they stop? And is there a possibility that they can resume those loans? And is there a way that the state could engage with the banks in a way that makes it attractive for the students with perhaps some kind of state guarantee or state support behind it?”

Lawless said there were a number of issues around graduates going abroad to work.

“We need to examine why is it that some of our health care graduates, not all by any means, but some, choose to practice in other countries post-qualification. Is there a way through the student supports team that I can incentivise some of them to stay around? I hope so.

“Are there things we can do in the broader health workforce and work experience to incentivise them also? I'm sure that there are. Those are the practical things.”

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