Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I cannot believe that I am once again here talking about paying student nurses and midwives. I ask the Minister of State to take my pleading back to the Minister for Health to sort out the pandemic payment for student nurses and midwives. It is unbelievable that this is still going on. A year ago, I introduced a piece of legislation that would allow student nurses and midwives to be paid. The Government, cynically, did not oppose the Bill. In fact, it let it proceed to Second Stage and be sent off into the ether rather than face a bad headline of once again simply refusing to acknowledge it or to commit to paying student nurses and midwives. Whatever about the argument that student nurses and midwives are not working and, accordingly, whether they should therefore be paid, that is a little bit beyond the scope of what I am here to speak about today.

I ask the Minister of State why student nurses and midwives have still not been paid the promised pandemic payment. I have spoken to a number of student nurses and midwives around the country, and they want the Government to put its money where its mouth is and instead of clapping for them, to pay them the promised pandemic payment. Students were deployed to fight this virus and while the Government did pay them the rate during the first wave, they ended up working during the much more aggressive second and third waves free of charge. Student nurses and midwives took on the same workload as nurses while still balancing learning the skills required as part of their college training placement.

I will not lie. After two years of this pandemic, with all that we asked of student nurses and midwives and all that they did on the Covid-19 front line, I was almost apoplectic when I learned that the reason their payment, for which they have been fighting tooth and nail, was not yet paid was because a memorandum had not yet been written. It is a very hard pill for student nurses and midwives to swallow that they are not getting a payment they had been promised from September, one I was told had been approved by the Cabinet before Christmas, although it is now February, nearly March, because a memorandum has not been written. That is beyond unseemly. It is extremely frustrating for student nurses and midwives.

It is unbelievable that we have left struggling student nurses and midwives, and have not paid them this meagre contribution given that they held the hands of dying patients at the height of the pandemic when their family could not be there for them. They cared for elderly patients on wards and played a crucial role in keeping the lights on and the doors open while Covid consumed the health service, all while they were students and supposed to be learning and on placement, upskilling and training to get the technical skills that are so desperately needed on their part. The pandemic payment is not a whopper. I believe it is €100 a week, which is not insignificant. It is incredible that it has not yet been paid.

I would contest that student nurses and midwives are currently working for free, but the Government has the power to change that. The Minister of State will probably tell me that the reason they have not been paid is because a memorandum has not gone out and that someone else has not done the work.Ultimately the Minister for Health is in charge of ensuring that student nurses and midwives are being paid. That memo went to Cabinet and my understanding is that it was agreed by Cabinet. As I said, it is unbelievable that we are in this situation. It is February, nearly March, and student nurses and midwives are going to be coming to the end of their academic year very soon and they still have not been paid. Why has this happened and, most important, when is it going to be rectified?