Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome. It is great to have him in the House to discuss such an important issue. I thank Senator Hoey for bringing this issue to the floor of the House, as she has done many times. On behalf of the Green Party, I am delighted to support the Bill and all of the work she has done on this issue.

A crucial matter in this context is that the INMO has stated that nurses are the ones most deeply impacted by Covid, not just in terms of what they are seeing on the floors of hospitals, but also in terms of suffering as a result of contracting Covid-19. That is really important because when we think of an education system, we have to think of it in terms of empathy. In any form of education, empathy is key to what we teach young people. In order to teach empathy, one must show empathy. That may be where things have fallen down in the past.

As Senator Clifford-Lee noted, a critical point is that it is mainly women who are engaged in these caring roles in midwifery and nursing. These roles are taken for granted. Being able to discuss them freely on the floor of the Seanad is very important. However, we have to go beyond repeatedly discussing this issue; we need to show our support in a concrete way. It is not just about showing our recognition, it is also about who can afford to go into these kinds of careers. If it is not made affordable, it will be more and more difficult to get people into the profession.

This issue is not just about this generation. It is also about honouring the service people provide and thereby ensuring that future generations will take up this honourable profession. I certainly believe that all of the commitments in the programme for Government depend on that, as does Sláintecare. It depends on putting in place supports for the human resources and not just the infrastructural supports about which we often speak.

The Minister is to be commended for seeking a review on the clinical placement allowances but, as many Senators have stated, it does not go far enough and it is not fully implemented, so there is work to do in that regard. He is also to be commended for indicating that he believes it should be backdated. That is an important part. Those who have been engaged throughout the pandemic should be paid for their work.I also refer to what Senator Sherlock said about this issue coming down to what is considered to be work. That is critical, because we have seen during this pandemic that the work of student nurses is not just about shadowing people. From my own circle and from my constituents, I know that people are in hospital to give birth or for some other reason, and they do not have anyone else there with them. Therefore, a great deal of work is going on beyond what nurses and midwives usually undertake, and that also has a knock-on effect on student nurses who are working during this time.

It is also important that we protect the clinical placement part of the education of student nurses. One criticism that has been made in this regard is that people will have to do catch-up in this area. I am interested in hearing how it is planned to address this issue. We must ensure that everybody is getting all their placement time, because we do not want to have that legacy again in our health service but also purely because the young people involved must feel the education they receive is the same as that received by previous generations. I thank the Minister for his time and I look forward to hearing his response. I again thank Senator Hoey and the Labour Party for introducing this legislation.