Katie Murphy's plight is not unusual. Scores of other students have been locked out of places in the medicine and related courses - even though they have the CAO points.

The demand for these places is extraordinary, but the limited supply of available places means thousands are disappointed.

Figures from the Central Applications Office (CAO) show that just 4 per cent of the 12,000 students who applied for places in medicine and related courses were successful last year.

Last year, more than 12,000 Leaving Cert students listed these courses in their CAO preferences, but only 516 places were made available to current-year students.

This is because almost 40 per cent of these places go to either repeat Leaving Cert students or to those applying from Britain and Northern Ireland.

The CAO figures show that only 823 places were available in the four high-demand courses of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and veterinary last year. Of these

A total of 165 places went to students from Britain and Northern Ireland

A further 142 went to students who had repeated the Leaving Cert

Only 516, or 62 per cent, of these places were available to last year's Leaving Cert students.

The crisis is clear in medicine, where Northern Ireland is providing almost as many places (260) as the Republic (308) for a population that is a third of the size.

The number of places in medicine available for Irish and other EU students has been capped at 308 per annum for the past quarter-century.

But the colleges have been looking elsewhere - the number of non-EU entrants to medicine increased by 96 per cent between 1998 and 2002.

Ten days ago, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, signalled the Cabinet will shortly approve a radical shake-up of medical education.

The number of places in medical training for Irish and non-EU students is expected to double to more than 700. There will also be a new graduate-entry programme, running alongside the existing undergraduate system.

The increase in the number of places is unlikely to lead to significantly lower CAO points levels for medicine. Hanafin said the CAO requirement would only drop by between five and 10 points even if the number of places available to Irish students doubled.

This is because of the large number of students with high points who want to do medicine. More than 1,100 Leaving Cert students achieved 550 points or more this year.