Prof John Crown of St Vincent's University Hospital, who revolutionised breast cancer research, said teaching students homeopathy was "no more scientific than teaching that the moon is made of cheese".

He was responding to the decision of higher-education standards watchdog Hetac (Higher Education Training and Awards Council) to take submissions from course providers of alternative medicine and to rule which subjects can lead to bachelor of science degrees.

Crown warned that giving BScs to students of "pseudoscience" would show disrespect to "the thousands of people studying genuine science" and that if Hetac went down that road it "might as well accredit degrees in leprechaun-spotting".

Mary Sheridan of Hetac told RTE radio recently that thousands of people turn to alternative medicine every day and need to be satisfied that practitioners are qualified. Areas such as homeopathy will have to show "significant scientific underpinning" in order to achieve bachelor of science status, she added.

Clare Sheehan, director of the Galway College of Homeopathy, has already submitted its course to be accredited at BSc honours level and Gerry Murphy of the Dublin-based Irish School of Homeopathy is planning to follow suit if the Galway submission is successful.

Dr Brian Hughes, a leading psychologist at Galway University, is concerned that if homeopathy degrees are accredited by Hetac, it will "cast a shadow" over all other Hetac qualifications.

"Homeopathy is the process of rejecting the very notion of research and of evidence itself, " he said. "A 'science' degree in homeopathy would be a complete contradiction in terms."

"No comment is the best comment, " said Sheehan, when asked about scientists who argue her speciality is not a science. "We are happy to share our research material with anyone who questions the scientific status of homeopathy."

Her concern is that Hetac may offer a bachelor's degree in Complementary Health, instead of the BSc honours she feels her course deserves.

Hetac appears to be influenced by events in the UK, where several new universities are offering degrees in alternative medicine, including six BScs in homeopathy.

Sheridan told RTE: "Integrated healthcare is very much to the fore in the UK and we can't avoid that going into the future."

Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter and Plymouth universities, is one of many UK scientists who has complained about the teaching of homeopathy at degree level.

"Universities should aspire to a certain level of rigour and intellect and if that's not the case, they're shooting themselves in the foot, " Ernst told the science magazine Nature.