Annie Hoey (Labour)
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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?

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue. It is not the first time she has taken to her feet to raise this. A key Government priority is to protect the education of all students, including student nurses and midwives. Clinical placements account for 50% of the overall education programme requirements for student nurses and midwives and supporting students to undertake clinical placement remains a key priority for the Government. In early 2021 the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, directed a longer term review of matters relating to student nurses and midwives to be undertaken. He appointed Mr. Seán McHugh to carry out this important work. In November 2021 following consideration of the recommendations within the McHugh report, Government approved the Minister's interim proposals to provide significant additional supports, worth €12 million, to student nurses and midwives while attending their clinical placements.

For supernumerary students these proposals extended the pandemic placement grant, PPG, of €100 per week to all eligible nursing and midwifery students on placement for this academic year backdated to September 2021. In addition, the McHugh report sets out recommendations to enhance the current travel and subsistence scheme for students in attending their supernumerary clinical placements. The Minister will consider these further so that a permanent enhanced scheme can be developed that will provide a targeted and more equitable approach to supporting students in undertaking supernumerary clinical placements, to be in place from September 2022.

In the meantime the Minister has doubled the weekly cap on vouched accommodation allowance to €100 per week of placement for supernumerary students needing overnight accommodation away from their normal place of residence in order to attend some of their clinical placements, which is also backdated to September 2021.

In regard to internship students on rostered placement, work is ongoing to progress other recommendations within the McHugh report, including increasing the salary of intern students to 80% of the staff nurse salary. In the meantime we are providing student nurses and midwives on paid internship placement with additional support of €50 per week of placement, amounting to €1,800 in total. This is for the duration of their internship and is with effect from January 2022, the same date as paid internships for the current academic year began.

To go to the nub of the Senator's question, on 22 January 2022 the Department issued sanction to the HSE regarding these additional supports and requested that payment be prioritised. Yesterday the Department was informed by the HSE that it is finalising a memo to be issued to services to provide for payment. As part of this process the draft communication has been shared with representative groups. After the memo is finalised and issued, the HSE has confirmed payment will follow the normal lead in time for routine payment cycles which I believe is fortnightly. The Department has once again emphasised to the HSE the importance of expediting these payments.

In conclusion the Department has also commenced its work on the recommendations from the McHugh report that are applicable to the next academic year, and in this regard the Minister intends to bring a detailed proposal to Government in due course.

Annie Hoey (Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State for her reply. We understood the memo had very recently gone out. The review is extremely welcome and I urge the Minister to enact these recommendations with haste. It is all well and good that this is going to be sorted out soon. I note there is no set date yet. It is still somewhat in the hopefully not-too-distant future, which will bring student nurses and midwives some comfort but it will not help them backdate anything. Backdated payments are all well and good if you can afford to have a backdated payment. However, landlords are not going to take backdated rent, Vodafone will not take a backdated bill, and Tesco is not going to take a backdated payment for groceries. I am sure the Minister of State understands how deeply frustrating this is for students nurses and midwives. They go in every single day and do their absolute best and they are exhausted.They are wrecked. The pandemic payment is a small payment and it immensely frustrating for those student nurses and midwives. My phone is literally hopping in front of me with people asking when they are getting this, on which date and what is happening. We cannot have stuff backdated all the time. I hope that this can be sorted very quickly.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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To reiterate, on 26 January 2022, just under a month ago, the Department issued the sanction to the HSE regarding these additional supports and requested that payment be prioritised. Yesterday the Department was informed by the HSE that it is finalising a memo to be issued to services to provide for payment. The Department has, once again, emphasised to the HSE the importance of expediting these payments. The Senator is quite right. It is exactly as she said. They are student nurses and they have been guaranteed this payment. It needs to happen very quickly.

In conclusion, I just want to make some additional remarks. I want to inform the House that the overwhelming majority of student nurses and midwives have availed of the Covid vaccination, which has been a significant contributing factor to ensuring that clinical placements have continued with minimal disruption. I want to commend all student nurses and midwives in this regard.

Second, to ensure that appropriate oversight of support is in place for students, the clinical placement oversight group has remained in place and reports to the chief nursing officer in the Department.

I will again raise the Senator's issue. We are nearly there but nearly is not good enough. They need their back money and I do appreciate that.