Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion being brought forward by Solidarity-People Before Profit. I absolutely condemn the amendment put forward by the Government. During the discussion this morning I was minded of the time I spent in London. Hundreds of thousands of our nurses were forced to emigrate there, and nothing has changed. All the camogie and football teams there were full of nurses that this country did not want. We are giving them the exact same message now. There is no justifiable reason anyone would oppose the payment of student nurses and midwives who are on the front line during the global pandemic. Because we put a label of "student" on nurses, we think that it is carte blancheto be able to exploit them in the way that we have exploited many other students around the accommodation crisis and everything else that has been done. We should not be here in December trying to shame the Government into doing the right thing.

Student nurses have stepped up heroically. So far, 3,179 healthcare workers have contracted Covid-19. That is more than 7% of all cases. They deserve to be paid for the work they are doing. They need to be paid for the work they are doing. Students on placements often worked weekends at various forms of care facilities. That is how they support themselves through college. Due to Covid-19 they have had to give up these part-time jobs due to the dangers of cross-contamination. The Government comes across as completely out of touch when it does not dawn on it that many of these students need an income to live on. They are not paid. They are unable to learn and on top of this they are expected to pay €3,000 in fees, and often multiples more in rent. We are telling them to give up their job, to work for free, and they still must pay the highest fees in the EU. Yet we wonder why we have problems retaining nurses if this is how they are treated. Something absolutely must be done about this. They are not asking for a handout. They are asking to be paid for the very hard work they do. My colleague was right in saying that nobody calls them students. They are called nurses because of the work they do. I thank them for the work they do, but we need to step up to the mark.

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