Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will finish on this. I am sorry as I do not mean to be taking up the Senator's time. In our very productive debate in the Seanad recently on her Bill, one of the questions I asked the Department was whether it could find for me any country in the world that paid more to students during their nursing and midwifery degrees than Ireland according to an arrangement not based on an apprenticeship model. Germany, for example, undoubtedly pays more but it has an apprenticeship model. At the time, the Department was not able to come back with any country that paid more. If it is the case that Ireland is paying as much or more than any other country, it does not stack up that the amount paid while doing a degree is the reason students would choose to work in other countries.