The High Court has rejected a challenge to Ireland’s medical-school admissions system by Frank Prendergast, who argued that European applicants should be allowed to compete for places reserved for non-European students if they paid the higher fees.
Mr Justice Charleton delivered judgment on 30 July 2008. He found that the Higher Education Authority had statutory power to attach conditions to funding for medical schools, including limits on the number of European entrants. He also concluded that the government could set education policy and decide how public funds were allocated.
Prendergast, an Irish-born applicant, scored 550 points in his 2007 Leaving Certificate after repeating the examination. He met the medical schools’ minimum academic requirements but did not secure a place through the European competition. He instead began studying pharmacy at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
He told the court that a non-European acquaintance with fewer points had secured a place at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Prendergast’s lawyers asked that he be offered a place on the same fee-paying basis. The colleges said the European and non-European applicants competed in separate admissions systems, and that European applicants were ineligible for non-European places.
The judgment described the history of limits on European medical places and the policy of using higher fees from non-European students to support medical education. It also considered the Fottrell Report, adopted by the government in 2006, which recommended increasing places for European students while reducing the non-European share over time. The judge said the evidence supported the view that the revised intake would help meet Ireland’s future need for doctors, while clinical training capacity remained a constraint.
On the constitutional equality argument, the judge held that allowing applicants to buy access to non-European places could disadvantage other European students unable to pay the full economic cost. He found no evidence that the government’s policy was arbitrary or capricious. The judgment also rejected the competition-law challenge, finding no abuse of a dominant position and no effect on trade between EU member states on the evidence presented.
The court therefore rejected the claim. It did not order a place for Prendergast or overturn the admissions system. The judgment addressed the challenged arrangements on the evidence before the court; it did not decide whether the earlier quota would have been unlawful on evidence from a different period.