Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I received a response on 30 September to a question I tabled in respect of payments to student nurses in the first-year to third-year cohort. The response states:

Supernumerary clinical practice placements were temporarily suspended during the initial Covid-19 pandemic response and a temporary scheme was put in place whereby these students were offered employment by the HSE as healthcare assistants. These supernumerary clinical practice placements will resume as expected, based on the requirement for undergraduate nursing and midwifery programmes.

Based on a trawl through the figures that were provided to me, more than 554 people are affected by this issue among the first-year to third-year cohort.

I reiterate the call from the Irish Medical Organisation, INMO, for a scheme to be put in place, similar to the one that was previously in operation, under which student nurses were paid healthcare assistant salaries. That was done in recognition of the fact that many student nurses are working well beyond their experience. We know there are serious capacity issues within the system. According to the INMO, the reality of current service provision is that "inadequate registered nursing staffing levels are requiring students throughout their clinical placements to undertake work over and above that expected of their undergraduate status". The INMO states that the failure to remunerate them "amounts to exploitation".We all accept the bona fides of the organisation in this matter. We are merely calling on the Government to recognise that student nurses are workers and that they should be paid for their work.

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