I propose to take Questions Nos. 1778, 1806, 1816, 1842 and 1887 together.
My Department is aware of the eligibility challenges for students graduating from Medical Schools in Northern Ireland in relation to meeting deadlines for Internship in the Republic of Ireland. There has been ongoing engagement with the HSE, the Medical Council and the Northern Ireland universities to address these issues.
The recruitment process for Internship is managed through a single, national, annual recruitment campaign, and a central matching process is undertaken for allocating candidates to Intern posts. This process matches candidates to one of their preselected preferred Intern posts by order of merit using their centile score. A key dependency therefore to conduct the match is the receipt of centiles from medical schools, and the deadlines for centile submission are in late May of each year. This deadline is to ensure that after post offer there is sufficient time for candidates to meet all employment and regulatory requirements before commencing their Internship.
Interns in the Republic of Ireland start employment with the HSE in the last week of June. This allows a week of induction plus one week of shadowing the existing interns. These two weeks are vital to not only support the new interns but also in the interest of patient safety.
The date of release of centiles by Ulster University is later than the other Medical Schools in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and does not meet the current HSE May deadline. This anomaly has not yet impacted any students seeking to undertake internship in Ireland. The first graduates from Ulster University will be in 2025.
The HSE has already engaged with Ulster University on this issue and further engagement is planned to seek a solution to the issues highlighted.