Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I wish to take this opportunity to thank him for all the hard work he has done on Covid. He should congratulate himself and his staff in the Department of Health on the vaccine roll-out plan. People wrongly compare us with New Zealand regarding zero Covid, but when our vaccine roll-out is compared with New Zealand's, they will start on Saturday with only 60,000 doses, so we need to look at ourselves and say "Well done". As supplies come in, we seem to be administering the vaccines and we have to keep that point to the fore.

We are not here to discuss that today. I am here to commend Senator Hoey on her Private Member's Bill. She clearly is the Senator for the students, as our Leader pointed out, and she is doing a fantastic job. I spent a lot of time in 2019 in hospital and got to know many nurses and midwives. I was taken aback by the midwives especially. Midwifery is now a four-year course, and some of the students are in their final year and in their very early 20s and they have so much knowledge and professionalism. The standard of care coming down the tracks is just unreal. It would be so unfortunate and just awful to lose these amazing people, and it was mostly women I dealt with. We know there is a recruitment and retention issue in the Department and within our health system, and it would just be careless to lose these amazing women.I got to meet many of them during non-Covid times. The majority of times they were meeting me in an educational setting where they were with other nurses and midwives in a training environment. However, as Senator Hoey and other Members have pointed out, once Covid hit and we had a huge wave, these student nurses were placed in a precarious situation. They were put on the front line, working in dangerous Covid wards. Many of them contracted Covid. It is only fair that they be compensated for being put in those situations where they have a greater chance of contracting the virus. It is unfair that we are not taking that seriously. The points on this have been well made across the House. Just on a basic fairness level, we all know that not only our student nurses but also doctors and cleaning staff, indeed anyone working in a front-line environment, are facing huge challenges. The Covid situation is not receding. Only two days ago St. James' Hospital issued an advance warning of mass screenings as it is having so many outbreaks due to people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. Covid is therefore still a very live issue and is still very much affecting our front-line workers. It has not gone away. The tide does not seem to be turning.

I thank our front-line workers and fully support the motion today on pay for student nurses, especially given the Covid environment. I hope the Minister can do something to compensate these amazing students, who are women in the main, albeit that there are some male midwives and nurses. Women do seem, particularly in relation to Covid, to be disproportionately affected. I will leave it at that.