Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is vital that student nurses and midwives complete their essential clinical placements in a safe environment and our senior nurses have gone to great lengths to ensure this is the case. I also recognise the potential hardship that might arise for students on placement due to Covid-19. Student nurses and midwives are not paid salaries for clinical placements in years 1 to 3, when they are supernumerary or additional to the existing workforce. This is the same across Europe in countries that have degree programmes for nursing and midwifery.

Student nurses and midwives do receive allowances, including an accommodation allowance up to €50.79 per week and a refund of travel expenses. They are the only clinical students who receive the allowance. Students are paid salaries of €21,729 or €22,229 in year 4 of their studies. Last week I wrote to nursing unions and advised of the supports made available in 2020 for student nurses and student midwives. These include access to the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, for those student nurses and midwives who may have lost part-time employment due to Covid-19. This now includes nurses and students who had to give up their part-time jobs in nursing homes, for example, while on placement, in order to limit the potential for cross-contamination of Covid-19. As the jobs still existed, they could not previously access the PUP, but they now can. This is a specific exemption for nurses and midwives, for which I have secured Government approval and which is not available to anyone else.

I have also asked for a short, independent examination of the current travel and accommodation allowance in the context of Covid-19. I also believe a longer-term review of allowances and the fourth-year student salary is necessary and I have committed to that. My Department is engaging with the representative organisations on this matter, and if they give their agreement for the review, my intention is that any recommended increase in allowances related to Covid-19 would be in place in January, as requested by the representative bodies.

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