Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Our student nurses and midwives are incredible. They do invaluable nursing work while on placement on wards and, in fact, they keep our hospitals going. They do a minimum of 28 hours a week and they work far beyond their training duties.

The McHugh review of 2022 addressed pay for intern nurses. However, the new subsistence allowance for first-to-third-year student nurses does not go far enough and leaves so many in very difficult circumstances. The review failed to address supports for other students working in clinical placement in the health service.

One student nurse wrote to, I think, every TD at the weekend to say that in their first five weeks of studying to be a general nurse, they were taught how to save a life, how to bathe a paralysed patient and how to care for the elderly and infants, but then went on to say it is clear to them that the role of a student nurse is not valued.

The work that student nurses and midwives do is invaluable but they are also experiencing a cost-of-living crisis. They struggle to find accommodation. They are forced to pay rip-off rent when they do so, or they are forced to commute long distances when they cannot.

The mother of one student nurse wrote to my colleague, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, to share the distressing situation that her daughter is in. She is a second-year student nurse. She commutes a long distance to and from her placement because she cannot afford accommodation. She has slept on friends' sofas while working shifts in a maternity ward from 7.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. and now things are at breaking point for her. Her mother wrote that they now have to borrow money from family to put her up in a hotel for the days of her placement, that the HSE told her not to even ask for reimbursement, that they cannot afford €300 a week, that they are on low incomes, that they are sick at the thought of what will happen, that the stress it is causing is sickening, that her daughter breaks her back studying and working, that she has the loveliest nature and will be a lovely nurse - one of the nurses that our country is crying out for - and that surely this cannot be right. This student nurse is not alone. So many others are pushed into very difficult situations while pursuing their qualification and working hard for us in our hospitals.

By the way, this is not about a return to the apprenticeship model; this is about a fair deal for students working in our health service. Tá sé thar am go mbeadh Rialtas againn a thabharfadh cothrom na Féinne d’oibrithe cúraim sláinte ina n-oiliúint. Does the Taoiseach agree with me that healthcare workers in training should have a fair deal for the work they do when on placement? Will he commit to delivering that fair deal for first- to third-year student nurses and midwives?

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