Madam, - The article in your September 8th edition, "More Students must be given places to study medicine", by John Crowe, displays a serious misunderstanding of the way in which the Higher Education Authority (HEA) allocates public funding to the universities.
The HEA does not fund medical schools in the way stated by Prof Crowe. We use a formula-based funding mechanism which provides a block grant to each university as a whole. In particular, we do not make specific allocations to medical, or any other, faculties. Once in receipt of their block grant, each university decided for itself on its allocation internally. The differing unit costs across the medical schools referred to by Prof Crowe arise, therefore, from the internal resource allocation models employed by the universities themselves, not from any action by the HEA. - Yours, etc,
TOM BOLAND, Chief Executive, Higher Education Authority, Clanwilliam Court, Dublin 2.