The report of the Medical Education and Training Working Group, advocating an increase in medical student numbers in the Republic, will not be brought to Cabinet before September, it has emerged.
Sources close to the Department of Health have confirmed that the report of the working group, chaired by Prof Patrick Fottrell, will not make the Cabinet agenda before its August break.
Minister for Health Mary Harney welcomed the completed report.
"I am very aware of the need for more Irish doctors. As we go forward, there will be an increasing demand for doctors at the clinical coalface," she said.
As reported in The Irish Times this week, the Fottrell group has recommended an increase in the number of medical student training places from 305 to 725.
This increase is based on the need to address growing medical manpower pressures, as well as catering for the proposed expansion of consultant and GP numbers.
The report also gave the go-ahead for a new graduate entry model to medical education.Recommending that graduates be offered 40 per cent of future training places, the expert group also wants to see the number of training places for non-EU students capped at 25 per cent.
There has been a positive response to the Fottrell report. Dr Paul Finucane, director of medical school development at the University of Limerick, where plans for the State's first graduate medical school are well advanced, said: "We absolutely agree with the Fottrell group on the need for additional training places. It is good to see this recommendation coming from an authoritative source."
Asked to respond to the report's conclusion that undergraduate and graduate students should be allocated across all medical schools, Dr Finucane said it was "disappointing that the group has not considered new medical schools.
"The issue needs to be discussed in the weeks and months ahead. But the University of Limerick has not lost its determination to bring its graduate programme to fruition".
Dr Éamonn Shanahan, chairman of the Irish College of General Practitioners, said the college was delighted to see the changes proposed by Prof Fottrell.
Because of the manpower crisis in general practice and throughout the medical system, the proposals needed to be implemented "sooner rather than later".