Dáil debates

Wednesday, 2 December 2020

Pay for Student Nurses and Midwives: Motion [Private Members]

 

10:50 am

Photo of Donnchadh Ó LaoghaireDonnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If nurses could be paid in applause and lip service, they would be truly wealthy. The fact is that they cannot. Lip service and applause does not put food on the table, clothe a family or pay the rent. We can call them heroes and thank them for all the wonderful work they do. Unless progress is made on these issues, however, then they are entitled to feel aggrieved.

The allowances some student nurses get vary wildly depending on their university, college or hospital. One nurse got in contact with us to say that her placement in St. Vincent's hospital was €22.70 a week, 62 cent per hour worked. It does not even remotely cover her transport costs, not to mind enough to keep herself.

11 o’clock

In the final year of a nursing qualification, student nurses must go on a paid internship. The wage of that internship stood last year at €14 per hour, matching that of the healthcare assistant role. This year the wage has reduced. In the year of Covid-19 it has reduced to €9.48, which is below the minimum wage. One student has been in contact with us to say that:

We are not just students, we are fully integrated into our placements, and despite being a student every patient that I have ever met has called me 'nurse'. One can be sure that this is replicated right across the system. To my patient I am more than just a student, but to our Government I am no more than that.

Nurses are leaving the country when they graduate and this is another thing. Aside from the rights and wrongs of this, which are profound and very obvious, there is the foolishness of this. There is a global shortage of nurses, and Ireland has some of the best qualified nurses in the world. They are of a very high standard. Is it any wonder that they are going to the Middle East, Australia, Canada or wherever they are going at this time when they are treated this way? Not only is this profoundly wrong and not only is this making it far more difficult for people from a background where they do not have money to try to qualify as a nurse, it is profoundly foolish and stupid. It is costing us in the long run. We are losing some of the best nurses in the world because we are treating them poorly and we show them no gratitude. Is it any wonder that they are not staying here? We need to address that for the nurses and for their families, and we need to address it for everyone in this country too.

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