Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I assure the Deputies that I hear what they are saying. We all recognise the work of our qualified nursing and midwifery professionals throughout the country, in community healthcare and in the hospital system. Do students nurses make a valuable contribution while they are on their educational placements? Damn right they do and they work extremely hard. Those students are part of a clinical group whose members are funded for their educational placements. Are we looking at increasing that funding in a time of Covid? We absolutely are and we are engaged in doing that. However, I have a genuine concern that if we were to replicate what happened in the first wave, it could come at a risk to the educational element of those placements for nursing students in their first, second and third years of training. The placements are, first and foremost, part of their degree. Can we and must we do more for them? Absolutely. At the same time, we must protect their education. We are engaged in ensuring that we do both those things at the same time.

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