Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, we need the truth here. The Deputy and her party campaigned for the reversal of financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, for years, from 2013 onwards. FEMPI involved payments to the people the Deputy just outlined. She knows that, of course, but it suits her to twist and distort the truth about the reversal of FEMPI cuts. Legally, in terms of those cuts, one cannot discriminate between one group and another. However, one can delay as far as legally possible, which is what the Government has done. In 2017, legislation passed by this House, which the Deputy participated in, meant that by the end of December, the remaining FEMPI cuts had to be reversed in respect of the small group left. At the time, if it had been done in 2016, it would have meant the same thing that is happening today would have happened four or five years earlier. It was delayed deliberately because they were on the higher end of the scale.

On student nurses, I never said they are not doing real work. I never used that phrase yet the Deputy comes in here and says I did. In terms of the testimonies the Deputy and other Deputies have brought forward, they should be forwarded to me and the HSE because, in some instances, they represent an abuse and exploitation of student nurses. What I said yesterday in the Dáil was not bogus. The Deputy has deliberately avoided the question of whether we want a degree programme or an apprentice model. Her line seems to be it is okay to go back to the era when nurses did menial tasks and were on the bottom rung of the ladder in our hospitals and in the medical hierarchy, deferring to consultants and so on. The idea of the introduction of a degree programme was to end that era, professionalise nursing and give opportunities in nurse education so nurses could take their rightful place in the overall structures within our health services. That was the objective and the idea behind that was that first year students would have clinical placements of six weeks at a time. They were never meant to be working during those six weeks. If nurses are rostered for a 13- or ten-hour shift, they should be paid. Nursing directors in hospitals are disputing that and the Minister for Health is investigating that.

There is a core question here. In my view, nurse education is vital for the progression and advancement of the profession so that nurses can take their rightful place in the overall framework within our hospitals. The cases referenced yesterday should be sent in and there should be an investigation because no first year student should be treating a Covid patient, which I have said repeatedly. If the Deputy has evidence that they are treating dying Covid patients, in my view, that is wrong. That is an abuse. No hospital and no director of nursing should enable that to take place, particularly in the second wave of Covid, which did not have the same impact as the first wave on hospitalisations or ICU occupancy.

We are not refusing to pay anybody. We have initiated a review of the allowances, which will be finished by the end of this month and will result in higher allowances for student nurses. We have applied the pandemic unemployment payment to student nurses who cannot work part time in other workplaces because of the fear of cross-contamination. We have also provided other financial supports to meet additional costs as a result of working in a Covid environment. That is our commitment but we also want to ring-fence student nurses from having to work in the first place. Does the Deputy accept that principle in relation to the nursing degree programme? I would like a clear statement from her in relation to that principle and its implementation with regard to the degree programme.

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