Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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326. To ask the Minister for Health if student nurses are still being offered a contract as healthcare assistants and therefore still being paid for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35890/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Health Care Assistant initiative, whereby student nurses and midwives were offered temporary contracts as HCAs, was in response to the Covid19 outbreak and ceased in August 2020. This initiative was only ever intended as a temporary measure to provide additional support to the national effort. It also offered some protection to the ongoing education of student nurses and midwives as their clinical placements had ceased.

Clinical placements for Student Nurses have resumed. There are no plans at present to reinstate this initiative.