The Medical Council is “actively engaging” in the case of a UCD medical student after a “nude, bruised” intimate image of her was shared with staff and students.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the “Medical Council is aware of that case and is actively engaging with the associated parties to get more information”.
Carroll MacNeill told Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger the Medical Council had a responsibility to ensure “that everybody in the doctor profession, including those in the UCD medical school, meet the required standards for medical education.
“I expect the Medical Council to make full use of its powers under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 with regard to accreditation and inspection of all training sites. I have asked my officials to engage with the Medical Council in this regard.”
Coppinger, who first raised the issue in the Dáil last month following a report in UCD’s University Observer, pointed to a large rally at UCD on Wednesday in support of the student “who was raped and who had image-based sexual abuse committed against her on three occasions”.
The TD said the image shared of the UCD medical student was taken after she said she was allegedly raped in 2023. The image showed the victim “nude, bruised and unconscious” and was accompanied by “further rape threats and further threats to use objects to violently rape” her.
The image was circulated to staff and students through WhatsApp and email. The victim chose not to report the alleged rape to gardaí, Coppinger said.
She said she had spoken at the college campus on Wednesday to two other victims who dropped out of their colleges after their experiences, while the “perpetrator sits in the exam hall and not a bother on them”.
The rally called for systemic change in how the university responds to sexual violence and gender-based harm, and Coppinger claimed the college and the school of medicine had “clearly not acted property to deal with this situation”.
[ Large crowd attends UCD protest after ‘nude, bruised’ image of student sharedOpens in new window ]
The Minister said incidents of gender-based violence “are unacceptable in any context” and must be reported to An Garda Síochána.
If such incidents occur in the health sector “and involve medical practitioners, they should also be reported to the Medical Council”.
“The idea of a medical practitioner of any kind doing harm to any person, particularly to a woman, is anathema to all of us and does not bear thinking about.”
The Solidarity TD called on the Minister to ensure UCD “do everything in its power” to ensure this medical student can complete her medical degree as close as possible to her original timeline “rather than being forced to spend years longer in college because of the perpetrator’s actions”.
The Minister said: “I certainly know UCD will put its full support behind this young woman.”
Coppinger said, however, there was a “problematic culture” at the college. She saw the image and the accompanying comments which were “utterly scary and sickening”.
She added: “People studying medicine potentially had a role in that. The rapist took so much from this person. The school of medicine and UCD should not take the rest.”
The woman brought an unsuccessful High Court case against UCD, taking issue with how the university had required her to take steps to pass modules she had difficulty completing in the aftermath of the alleged assault.
Following Wednesday’s rally, president of the college Orla Feely issued a statement to staff stating the public “speculation” about the case was “harming” the UCD community.
The “abhorrent messages and obscene images” that were circulated “came from unidentified email accounts and unknown phone numbers”, she said.
She added it was “important to be absolutely clear that we have no evidence to suggest that these were further circulated by staff or students of the university other than in support of the response and the Garda investigation”.