Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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700. To ask the Minister for Health the reason the rate of pay for intern nurses has reduced from €14 per hour to €9.48 per hour, which is under the minimum wage of €10.10 hourly rate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39929/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Earlier this year, the Health Care Assistant initiative (whereby student nurses and midwives were offered temporary contracts to work as Health Care Assistants) began in April 2020 and ceased in August 2020.

This was in response to the Covid-19 outbreak and was only ever intended as a temporary measure to provide additional support of to the national effort, it also offered some protection to the ongoing education of student nurses and midwives as their clinical placements had ceased. Student nurses and midwives who took part in this initiative received payment of the first point of the Health Care Assistant salary scale, €28,493. The rate was also temporarily applied to those 4th year nurses and midwives on paid work placements.

The regular pay for 4th year student nurses on paid internship increased by 2% on 1st October this year. The annualised salary for this group is now €21,749 (or €10.72 per hour) for general nursing and midwifery and €22,229 (€10.96 per hour) for psychiatric nursing.