Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I refer to a short email I received from student nurse in my constituency during the week. She is required by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland to complete a minimum amount of clinical placement hours in order to meet the standards to qualify as a registered nurse. During previous years of training, the supernumerary status of her placement was upheld to the best of the ability of staff, but during the most recent clinical placement, this was not the case. She is a supernumerary student, and she claims that supernumerary students were being counted in the staffing numbers in an attempt to hide the excessive staff shortages due to Covid-19. I would like to know if that is the case. Are the supernumerary students being counted in staffing figures across hospitals?

During the initial Covid outbreak, or the first wave of Covid, the HSE belatedly paid student nurses some salaries as healthcare assistants, but that has now ended. Why has this ended? As we negotiate our way through the second wave of Covid, with the potential of a third wave in late winter or early spring, could the HSE outline how it is treating its student nurses? Is it counting them within the body of staffing, when it would not have done so in the months prior to this? I would like one of the witnesses to address the payment issue. Perhaps Ms O'Connor could respond to that.