Some quotes from the “Interim report of the National Research group evaluating revised entry mechanisms to medicine”, Ireland, July 2012:
http://medicine.tcd.ie/assets/pdf/HPAT-report-July2012-HEA-final.pdf
“The HPAT-Ireland scores of candidates who availed of commercial courses are higher...
Yup you don't need to be in the same state or go to the same workshop. They have a faq article about it:
http://www.medentry.edu.au/faq_discounts.asp#discountsgroup
As long as you have the name and phone number of the other person when you purchase.
Bec