Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and acknowledge the incredible work he has been doing over the past months tackling the virus. Although the numbers today are high, with 771 in hospital and 151 in ICU, they are dropping and that is positive. Today, the positivity rate is below 5%, I think for the first time since Christmas. That is very significant and welcome. On the vaccine roll-out, almost 300,000 people have been vaccinated. We are always compared to the UK and this is understandable as we are so close. However, it is important to note we have more people per capitavaccinated twice than the UK does, and a person is not fully covered until he or she has been vaccinated twice.

We are here today to debate student nurses. I acknowledge and welcome the Bill being brought forward by Senator Hoey. It is important that the work student nurses do at the moment is recognised. In fairness to the Senator, she has been very vocal on this issue since her election to the Seanad. It is worth noting however that in all the contributions it has not been acknowledged that student nurses have been paid while Deputy Donnelly has been Minister, up until the end of August. When we are campaigning for something it is important to acknowledge that there was recognition, at the start of the pandemic, that should nurses should be paid. Most people would acknowledge that what student nurses are doing at the moment is work and not placement. Admittedly, there is a technicality in that since September, clinical placements have been put back in position but anyone who has any experience of the health service at the moment would know that the work student nurses are doing is work and not placement. That needs to be recognised. A number of Senators, including Senator Sherlock, have touched on how there has been a big difference with placement in the last year and it needs to be recognised.If we are to pay student nurses, it needs to be backdated to when their status changed in August because it cannot be said that nurses were working from the start of the pandemic until August but were not working from August until now, during the second and third waves. The third wave has been the most difficult.

Anyone who watched the "RTÉ Investigates" programme from Tallaght hospital last week saw the incredible work that all nurses do. What touched me in that programme was that nurses obviously do their professional work but for the past year, they also seem to be replacing the role of family members for patients. Student nurses are the ones who seem to do that first and foremost. It is incredibly challenging to be a source of comfort to people through very difficult times, for example a mother going through labour without her partner, which is hugely difficult at the moment, especially if she is getting bad news. Mothers are without their partner unless they are in the delivery room. Nurses are also supporting people who are in intensive care units with Covid-19 and cannot meet any family members. The work that student nurses do in that regard needs to be recognised. Most people here seem to be in agreement that nurses, particularly student nurses, go above and beyond.

We also need to recognise that, as Senator Hoey touched on, all nurses, including student nurses, have not been vaccinated. I am aware of a couple of cases in Tipperary where public health nurses are administering vaccines to people over the age of 85 but are not vaccinated themselves. They were sent from Clonmel to Galway to get vaccinated while it was snowing, which was impossible. Those public health nurses are being told that their GPs cannot vaccinate them. Everyone is qualified to vaccinate the over-85s who are coming in but, for some reason, GPs cannot vaccinate their own public health nurses. That seems unfair. I have spoken to a number of public health nurses who are in that situation and feel let down by it. Could the Minister give some direction on that matter? Surely a GP should be able to give his or her public health nurse a vaccination and the nurses should not have to go searching themselves to try to get vaccinated because it is not viable for them to go to Galway or Dublin, or travel long distances to get the vaccination.

I thank the Minister for coming here. I welcome the Bill and wish it well.