Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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156. To ask the Minister for Health if he is taking steps to pay those undertaking work placements to become a social worker for their work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50683/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Student social workers like many other healthcare students do not receive remuneration or an allowance to support time spent on clinical placements as part of their training.

There are only a small number of healthcare courses where the students receive allowances to support clinical placements during training. These allowances have been in place for a number of years and based on specific requirements of the individual training program.

Across the health and social care disciplines, there are approximately 7,330 Health and Social Care Professional students in training who will, at different stages, require clinical placement in hospital and healthcare settings. The length of placements and the activities performed during these placements varies between disciplines. Students are not employees and in many cases the nature of the placement can, in the main, be limited to participation in an observing and a learning capacity. This is a key part of the learning in all undergraduate programs.

The HSE will continue to support the training of student social workers and to seek ways to improve their training experience including considering ways to support student placement closer to the college in which they train.