Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister's answer but the fact is that it is almost like the Government is blinkered to the fact that we are still in a pandemic. That is ignored and we are told that they should be students and they should be training. In fact, they are students and they are working. It is not that we are demanding that they become part of the workforce. We recognise that they are students but we also recognise that they should be paid for every hour they work. It is work that a normal care worker would do, including emptying bed pans, washing patients, taking their vitals and sometimes administering liquids and fluids to them. It is not that they are not working. When one is not being paid for one's work on the front line, being asked to pay for the flu jab is adding insult to injury and it really needs to stop.

The Minister wants me to draw attention to specifics but a lot of things happen in the HSE that should not happen. I know care workers in the HSE who have basically been witch-hunted for making any criticism of their employment or their employer. It really is not acceptable that it is like the politburo for workers who work within it. Some of these nurses are nervous about giving their names for that very reason. There is a bad culture there and this is only another example of it. The culture we have to stamp out is the exploitation of student nurses.

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