Sir, – Sinéad O’Sullivan’s piece resonated deeply (“People in Ireland want to know where our money goes. The answer is depressing,” May 13th). I am a young Irish woman who had every privilege this State could offer, two working parents, a private education, Trinity, and I still chose to pursue my master’s abroad, at a fraction of the cost, and build my early career overseas, where a starting salary afforded me a standard of living I cannot replicate having returned to Ireland five years later.
That should give our politicians pause. The brain drain is not only a story of people failed by the State. It is also a story of people the State invested in fully as children, who looked at what was on offer as adults and still left.
Until we elect leaders with the vision to build a country worth staying in, not subsiding, we will keep paying the premium O’Sullivan describes. – Yours, etc,
MAEVE RAFFERTY
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Monkstown,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I read with interest Sinead O’Sullivan’s article on doctor retention as she discussed the potential solution of “partial debt forgiveness conditional on a few years of service”.
I took on a six-figure unsecured loan product offered by the major banks in Ireland in 2010 to fund a graduate entry medicine programme in the RCSI.
I understand these loans are no longer available, which closes the door to those without independent means to pursue this pathway to medicine and I am very grateful I was offered the loan. It did mean that I paid my own way through my studies and I have worked as a doctor in Ireland ever since.
In 2014, as an NCHD, I was refused mortgage approval for a very modest house due to the outstanding loan and the “temporary” nature of our contracts, despite what I would have believed to be a fairly recessionproof career path.
Myself and two colleagues launched a GEM (graduate entry medicine) debt campaign with a costed proposal for tax relief on our loan repayments made by those graduate entry loan-holders who remained working in medicine in Ireland.
This was presented to members of the Oireachtas in Buswell’s Hotel in 2015. Nothing came of it.
Perhaps a sensible approach could now be taken where the loan system is reinstated to afford more equitable access to those who wish to study graduate entry medicine.
Those who take on the debt could then benefit from some forgiveness if they continue their training in Ireland. It certainly would have helped me when I came up against that formidable mortgage adviser in 2014. – Yours, etc,
DR ERICA MAGUIRE,
Consultant psychiatrist.
Ballyfermot/Chapelizod,
Dublin.
