An Bord Altranais, the Irish nursing regulatory body, is to seek clarification from Filipino authorities. Ireland is one of the top five countries which employs nurses from the Philippines.

An investigation by detectives at the Filipino national bureau of investigation (NBI) has identified three testing centres, in Manila and Baguio, where exam questions were given to nurses prior to their 11 and 12 June tests. Over 17,000 nurses passed their tests.

Concerns were raised by a number of nurses who passed the exam fairly, but only after they found out that others who sat the exam had seen as many as 90 out of the 100 questions in one test beforehand.

Mary Grace Lacanaria, chapter president of the Association of Deans of Nursing Schools in the Philippines, said that the alleged cheating raised the spectre that the Philippines had been exporting "incompetent and unreliable" professionals.

NBI director, Nestor Mantaring, last week said that charges were being prepared by the Philippines department of justice.

Prior to being contacted by the Sunday Tribune, An Bord Altranais had not been informed of the investigation into alleged cheating in nursing exams by the relevant Filipino authorities, according to its chief education officer, Anne Marie Ryan.

Ryan said that strict measures were in place here to ensure that the standard of certain foreign-trained nurses was up to standard.

"The main hospitals interview locally [in the Philippines] and that is a long convoluted process and it sets a very high standard in what it seeks from potential recruits.

"We require experienced nurses. When they arrive here we do a full review and they go through a process of 'adaptation' in training hospitals before they are registered here."

However, Ryan added that An Bord Altranais would be seeking information directly from the Filipino authorities themselves.