Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is entirely up to the Chairman. As members will be aware, I commissioned an independent review by Professor Tom Collins to look at the allowances payable to student nurses and midwives while on clinical placement in the context of Covid. There are two different reviews. One is the review by Professor Collins, which is specifically in the context of Covid, while we are starting a second one that I would like to see finished and implemented for the September academic year. This second review looks more broadly and structurally at the clinical placements themselves. What we agreed to was an independent review. Professor Collins provided that. He was under a lot of time pressure. I was keen to see that any recommendations if they were to be accepted by all sides could be implemented from 1 January so in fairness to Professor Collins, he did huge work right through Christmas. He came back with a series of recommendations, which will be available to the committee. The report on that has been published. I accepted all of the recommendations on that.

His specific recommendation on pay was that there would be a pandemic placement grant of €100 per week supernumerary so it would be a non-taxable amount of €100 per week. This would be from January. He also gave me the option to backdate that to the start of the academic year in September should I deem it appropriate. I did that and I have accepted those recommendations. I would very much like to be able to pay it but, obviously, we would be paying it as an agreed settlement. The discussion is ongoing with the representative bodies to see whether or not they want to accept that. It is fair to say that their reaction to it, which they stated publicly so I am not giving away any secrets here, was that they were disinclined initially to accept the proposal from Professor Collins. There is an ongoing conversation with the Department at the moment. I would very much like to get to an agreed position as quickly as possible.