Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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306. To ask the Minister for Health if he has sanctioned a pay increase for workers (details supplied) further to recommendations by the Workplace Relations Commission; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3132/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Consideration of pay rates for fourth year student nurses undertaking the 36 week clinical placement and whether the placement should attract incremental credit was provided for in a Chairman's Note to the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

The Department of Health and the HSE with the relevant nursing unions considered these issues at the Workplace Relations Commission on 14 December, 2015. Following that meeting the terms of the Chairman's Note were extended to include broader potential savings and service impacts. It was also agreed that the process would be progressed as a priority.

Following engagement between the relevant parties, a Joint Document encompassing proposals on the rate of pay for the placement and on granting incremental credit for the placement was finalised on 23 December. The Joint Document was submitted to my Department for consideration, in the first instance. Any changes to the rate of pay and the treatment of the placement as regards incremental credit will be subject to the approval of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Separately, the current rates of pay for the placement, was increased from the 1 January 2016, pro rata to the increase in the minimum wage for trainees announced in Budget 2016 and provided for in the National Minimum Wage Order 2015 (S.I. No. 442 of 2015).