Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, at the end of 2020 a short-term review of student nurse and midwife allowances in the context of COVID-19 was undertaken at my request by Professor Tom Collins. This review was conducted to examine any additional challenges that the Pandemic may have created for student nurses and midwives on supernumerary clinical placement and final-year internship placement. I accepted all of the recommendations which Prof. Collins made. This includes the payment of a Pandemic Placement Grant (PPG) of €100 per week for each week of supernumerary clinical placement which is backdated to the start of the current academic year, September 2020.

The processing of the payment of these grants is well underway. However, the recent HSE IT disruption did cause some delay to the planned completion by early June. The HSE are working with local clinical sites to ensure that outstanding payments are completed as soon as possible.

I also directed that a second longer-term independent review of student nurse and midwife clinical placement allowances take place. This review will include an examination of the existing clinical placement allowances payable to student nurses and midwives on placement. The terms of reference of the review were agreed in April 2021 with the representative bodies. The review was conducted by Mr Sean McHugh and while the HSE cyberattack delayed its progress, I expect to receive a copy of the review shortly and I look forward to reviewing the contents.