Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise an issue I have been raising for many months. It is not a new issue. I raised it first in March, when the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, stated that all student nurses would be paid for the duration of the pandemic. I may be wrong, but the pandemic has not gone away. The only thing that has gone away is the payment for student nurses. The restriction and strain on the health service have not gone away. What has gone away is the Fine Gael promise to look after the student nurses who are working on the front line. In March, a Fianna Fáil Deputy who is now a Minister stated that student nurses should be paid. She stated that these students and trainees deserve to be paid like all other nurses during the Covid-19 period. Fianna Fáil Deputies posted all over social media about the need to pay student nurses. They said they would be a voice for those student nurses and they called on the Government to sort out this issue. They then had a chance to be a voice for the student nurses and to sort out this issue but, instead, they voted against student nurses. How could we expect anything else?

Less than a month away from the strangest Christmas any of us will ever experience and nine months into fighting the pandemic, what did nurses and midwives get in the post this week? They did not get recognition of their hard work. One cannot post a round of applause to them. They got a letter asking them to pay €100 for the privilege of fighting Covid-19 on the front line for this country. Nurses have told me they are paying for the privilege of holding the hands of dying patients because their families cannot be there to do it. I do not say that lightly; it is what nurses have told me. That is what nurses are doing. They are paying for the privilege of bruises on their faces from wearing masks all day long. They are paying for the privilege of working long shifts in understaffed hospitals. They look to places such as Scotland, where NHS staff are getting £500 as a "thank you" for their work. We have a retention crisis here. How can we expect nurses and midwives to stay here when they can see they will be recognised and appreciated elsewhere? There is nothing in the Bill for nurses. The Government should hang its head in shame.

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