{"id":331104,"date":"2026-03-06T00:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331104\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T00:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:24:10","slug":"medical-council-actively-engaging-in-case-of-ucd-student-dail-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331104\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Council \u2018actively engaging\u2019 in case of UCD student, D\u00e1il hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Medical Council<\/a> is \u201cactively engaging\u201d in the case of a UCD<\/a> medical student after a \u201cnude, bruised\u201d intimate image of her was shared with staff and students.<\/p>\n

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> said the \u201cMedical Council is aware of that case and is actively engaging with the associated parties to get more information\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill told Solidarity<\/a> TD Ruth Coppinger<\/a> the Medical Council had a responsibility to ensure \u201cthat everybody in the doctor profession, including those in the UCD medical school, meet the required standards for medical education. <\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Speculation on circulated graphic image of student was \u2018harming\u2019 community, says UCD presidentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Coppinger, who first raised the issue in the D\u00e1il<\/a> last month following a report in UCD\u2019s University Observer, pointed to a large rally at UCD on Wednesday in support of the student \u201cwho was raped and who had image-based sexual abuse committed against her on three occasions\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cnude, bruised and unconscious\u201d and was accompanied by \u201cfurther rape threats and further threats to use objects to violently rape\u201d her.<\/p>\n

The image was circulated to staff and students through WhatsApp and email. The victim chose not to report the alleged rape to garda\u00ed, Coppinger said.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cperpetrator sits in the exam hall and not a bother on them\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cclearly not acted property to deal with this situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Large crowd attends UCD protest after \u2018nude, bruised\u2019 image of student sharedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Minister said incidents of gender-based violence \u201care unacceptable in any context\u201d and must be reported to An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If such incidents occur in the health sector \u201cand involve medical practitioners, they should also be reported to the Medical Council\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Solidarity TD called on the Minister to ensure UCD \u201cdo everything in its power\u201d to ensure this medical student can complete her medical degree as close as possible to her original timeline \u201crather than being forced to spend years longer in college because of the perpetrator\u2019s actions\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister said: \u201cI certainly know UCD will put its full support behind this young woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coppinger said, however, there was a \u201cproblematic culture\u201d at the college. She saw the image and the accompanying comments which were \u201cutterly scary and sickening\u201d. <\/p>\n

She added: \u201cPeople 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

The woman brought an unsuccessful High Court<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Following Wednesday\u2019s rally, president of the college Orla Feely issued a statement to staff stating the public \u201cspeculation\u201d about the case was \u201charming\u201d the UCD community. <\/p>\n

The \u201cabhorrent messages and obscene images\u201d that were circulated \u201ccame from unidentified email accounts and unknown phone numbers\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

She added it was \u201cimportant 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\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Medical Council is \u201cactively engaging\u201d in the case of a UCD medical student after a \u201cnude, bruised\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15049,42,1421,37636,43,43923,59995,40,38,41,39,5762,39935],"class_list":["post-331104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dail-eireann","tag-headlines","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-medical-council","tag-news","tag-people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps","tag-ruth-coppinger","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ucd","tag-university-college-dublin-ucd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}