Medical students attending college in Ireland should be required to work for the HSE for three of the first five years after their graduation, a Fine Gael Senator has insisted.

According to Senator Colm Burke, the State spends millions every year on the medical college system, but 50% of graduates then leave the country, leading to a ‘medical brain drain'.

"We're spending over €90 million to produce an average of 600 newly qualified doctors from Irish medical schools every year. This works out at an average of €30,000 for each of the five years Irish medical students spend at college. In return for this State investment, over half of all medical graduates leave the country in the year following their internship," he noted.

He believes that medical students ‘should be required to sign a contract to work for the HSE' for three of the first five years after their graduation. In return for this, the HSE should provide ‘graduate contracts which include a three year structured programme of training and professional development, with pay and conditions which compare favourably to other English speaking countries'.

"If the students don't want to sign such a contract they should be asked to pay the full market fee for three years of their medical education," Senator Burke said.

He claimed that such a move would ‘ensure an appropriate return' for the State's investment and would also provide medical students with ‘structured post-college training'.

He pointed to a HSE study carried out in 2011, which found that 46% of new doctors were no longer working in the Irish health system following their internship. Reasons for their decision to leave included dissatisfaction with Irish training structures and better training opportunities elsewhere.

"Three years on from this report no action has been taken to address the situation. I completed my own study in June 2012, which shows two thirds of graduating medical students did not intend to stay in Ireland.

"The HSE, the Department of Health and the training bodies have continued to kick the can down the road and have failed, refused and neglected to set up proper structured training for medical doctors who have completed their intern year," Senator Burke said.

While this has been happening, the health system has spent a lot of resources recruiting graduates from outside of Ireland. Of the 16,500 doctors currently registered with the Medical Council, over 6,000 did not graduate in Ireland.

"We can't go on producing surveys, studies and reports without action being taken. In order to provide an efficient healthcare service we require an adequate number of medical doctors. We won't be able to develop the health service we require without them," Senator Burke added.

He made his comments at a conference in University College Cork.