In Ireland, according to the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, just 2.7% of all third-level students have known disabilities. This represents about 30% of all students with disabilities entering secondary education. Currently there are no students with disabilities attending any Irish teacher training college and only a handful are enrolled in nursing schools, dentistry and radiotherapy training programmes.

This is hardly surprising, given that our own Department of Education rules for National Schools teaching programmes admissions contain Article 155 (4), stating that: "Before a candidate is admitted to a Training College the medical officer of the College must certify that he is of sound and healthy constitution and free from any physical or mental defect likely to impair his usefulness as a teacher."

In contrast, in the UK and the US, disclosure of specific learning difficulties cannot be used to influence the admission selection process. Neither can any disability be used to prevent anyone's admission to a medical or teaching school.

You've read it right . . . our state regulations actually prevent students from undertaking a course of study on the grounds of having any "defect" (a distinctly pre-Enlightenment turn of phrase) which may hypothetically impair their future professional "usefulness".

In other words, according to our education bureaucrats, the world of liberty and equality of opportunity we are supposedly living in has bounds. These bounds are (a) defined by the admissions officers, (b) can be extended to cover virtually anything imaginable, (c) allow an individual no recourse to prove the bureaucrats wrong.

Thus, if you have dyslexia (and potentially can do everything any good teacher does but, say, cannot master an Irish language course), there is no need to apply to a training college. If you are deaf . . . despite being able to lip-read and teach algebra and geometry or drawing . . . no need to apply. If you are blind but have deep knowledge of and passion for teaching history . . . no need to apply either.

Very similar archaic criteria for admission to schools and post-educational practice extend to virtually all selfregulated professions in Ireland.

Thus, a student with epilepsy can be asked to leave a law school because the college authorities may feel uncomfortable about the impact of his presence on other students who might witness an attack. A PhD student in Social Sciences may be forced to withdraw from her studies just for asking for help with editing her thesis. These are all actual cases on the record.

At primary school level, Irish education authorities are failing tens of thousands of students who may be requiring assistance because they are suffering from dyslexia and other learning disabilities. In fact, no one really knows the actual extent of the problem.

Ireland's Department of Education has only a handful of certified psychologists to assess kids. As a result, only about 2% of all suspected cases are being tested, with 98% of parents and children being relegated to fight their own battles.

Apparently, it is the lack of funds that is stopping the education bureaucrats from unrolling a comprehensive programme of testing.

Now, here is an odd argument indeed. Based on the UK figures, there are probably between 30,000 and 35,000 Irish students in need of assessment. An assessment test costs 500 in private practice, implying a net after-tax cost to the exchequer of 9m- 10m a year to cover every child in need.

Currently, only about 20% of students with dyslexia go to college, so if proper assessment were to help even a quarter of those who do not progress to third-level education, Ireland would gain some 6,000 extra third-level graduates a year. The annual benefits of this to the economy will be in excess of 120m in terms of extra economic output. Social and human benefits would be beyond any measure.

Self-regulated professional cartels, especially in the areas of medicine, nursing and teaching, are effectively restricting access to their professions for people with disabilities by setting 'universalist' qualification criteria. It is hard to imagine how a person can be prevented from studying to be a mental health nurse on the basis of an assumption that a disability may impede his ability to undertake requisite A&E training.

These professions often have no problem with differentiating specialist pay rates and wages for individuals passing the admission bar, but claim intrinsic inability to create similar differentiation of competencies required for minimum educational standards.

As a result, Ireland Inc is relegating thousands of people to a life of unfulfilled potential, including, often, to a life of perpetual state dependency, solely on the basis of a presumption that they will not be able to cope with their chosen field of study or their chosen profession.

Our state attitude toward students with disabilities cannot be justified either on the grounds of our children's rights to have equal access to real opportunities nor on the grounds of basic economics.

Dr Constantin Gurdgiev is an economist and editor of Business & Finance magazine