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DURING A DEBATE on paying student nurses Sinn Féin’s Patricia Ryan has told the Dáil a story of a student who was helping a patient to shower when his “toe came off in his sock” while she was on her own and couldn’t leave the man.
“Imagine that. Imagine she doesn’t get paid for that,” she said.
A report compiled by Professor Tom Collins, former chair of TU Dublin has recommended to government that student nurses should receive a pandemic grant of €100 a week during their unpaid placements in hospitals.
The Government could backdate this to September, and continue it for the rest of the academic year.
Nurses’ union the INMO has said previously that this €100 proposal “does not reflect Covid risks they face“. It has also said that the Covid threat they face now during the third wave is more severe than in December, when testimonies for the report were taken.
During their time in college, student nurses are required to work unpaid to get the necessary number of ‘working hours’ needed to become fully qualified.
From fourth year onwards, these nurses receive some payment but a large chunk of their clinical placements are unpaid during the rest of their degree.
Backlash
Government faced a backlash from Opposition TDs today, who raised serious concerns about the remuneration student nurses are paid, with some choosing between paying for food and paying for public transport, they said.
During the debate on Sinn Féin’s motion to pay student nurses and midwives, Opposition TDs appealed to the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to ensure that student nurses are paid for the work they do. Many pointed out that it is no coincidence that the majority of these workers are young women.
Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson, David Cullinane said he has spoken to hundreds of students, telling the Dáil that they are highly insulted with the €100 per week payment, stating that it equates €3.22 per hour.
Rise’s Paul Murphy said student nurses deserve to be paid more for their work. He asked the minister how he can justify paying the student nurses so little.
To ensure that the hospitals don’t collapse under the strain, they have had to give up their other part time jobs “in order to protect patients”, he said.
“How on earth do the government expect them to pay their bills and cover their rent, with 100 euros a week. It’s worth contrasting the treatment of the student nurses, with the position of the Secretary General of the Department of Health, which is getting an extra €90,000 a year,” he said.
Solidarity’s Mick Barry called it a “scandal” while Aontú’s Peadar Toíbín called on the public to remember the members of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party for voting down a motion before Christmas to pay student nurses.
Student testimonies
People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett said the government is simply dismissing the testimony of student nurses “when they explained in graphic and sometimes shocking detail” the work they do. He said they have played a pivotal role during the Covid crisis.
Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin appealed to the minister to pay student nurses, pointing out that if Donnelly was still in Opposition, he would have dismissed the speeches he has given explaining away why the government cannot pay them.
“You would have dismissed it out of hand as being tone deaf,” he said, adding that these young workers are putting their lives at risk.
“I would suggest to you that you realise the depth of feeling that there is in hospital settings, healthcare settings and student nurses themselves at this decision. I would ask you to reflect on how embittered, and how in the long term this decision is going to last within somebody’s mindset,” he said, with the Labour TD telling the minister that this decision will be seen as a black spot on the minister’s record.
‘Gaslighting’
Social Democrat’s Holly Cairns accused the minister of effectively “gaslighting” student nurses by “denying them the realities of their own experience”.
Independent TD Catherine Connolly said student nurses are making a “very basic demand”. She said the message that ‘we are all in this together’ has been trampled on, stating that was brought into focus this week when the government agreed to a salary increase for the new Department of Health Secretary General.
“What kind of a message is that when we’re all in this together,” she said, adding that they are looking for a recognition for the work they are doing.
Junior Health Minister Mary Butler told the Dáil that students are paid for their clinical placements in their fourth year.
She told the House that she regrets that unpaid placements for students in Year 1-3 have been suspended for at least two weeks but this week.
“This was a necessary decision,” she said, adding that it was in response to the particular clinical care demands and the requirement for qualified staff.
Donnelly has said a long-term review of pay for student nurses is also due to commence.
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€50 million is spent on the 1916 celebrations next year with this crisis going on. How about spending €1m instead and using the other €49m to provide accommodation to these people?
I imagine Connolly would have agreed with you. But the answer will be ‘tourist revenue will greatly exceed…etc’. Not that this was a factor considered for the Dublin Web Summit, mind.
Why would the gov want to solve issues with homeless, hospitals, schools when they could spend millions on partying not that they require a reason to party.
Millions goes into homelessness already, more money won’t make any difference. There should be one state backed homeless charity, say Peter McVerry, where people can donate and take out the huge levels of admin/management that comes with having 20 different organisations.
Cherish all the children of the Republic. Action speaks louder
Homelessness is an inevitable result of 30+ years of neo liberal government policy where housing is treated as a profit center for the rentier elite and assorted vested interests in banking, law, auctioneering etc. As long as this continues, we will suffer the consequences as a society as demonstrated in the property bubble, inevitable crash, family home evictions, and the current soaring rack rents and homelessness crisis.
There would be no scarcity of accommodation in Ireland if the government would play it’s proper role in ensuring the citizens had access to decent and affordable housing both rented and bought.
This would require modifying the taxation and legal systems to encourage owner occupier home purchase and strongly discourage property speculation.
In parallel the state needs to construct the necessary volumes of social housing and fundamentally reform the private rental sector with an immediate rent freeze and progressive rent reductions to affordable levels, banning economic evictions and ensuring security of tenure.
Better still, why not cut the funding to the self-interest quango lobby sector – the ones that like to pretend they have something to offer to Ireland.
AAA, being against austerity is right, but you undo all that protest by being for immigration, either this country is for it’s people or it’s valuable, finite resources are for all, like you open-borders extremists like to say…IRELAND IS FOR ALL. There is only one path that hits the international predators, no to austerity, no to immigration. Ireland for it’s native people.
So Wally it looks like you want the state to become a bigger landlord and that they should tax the working people in Ireland to pay for it. Social housing in this country has already created social disaster areas and you want want more of it! Out of interest if you were ever able to introduce your plan as outlined, when the accidental landlords can no longer afford the mortgage on their buy to let property (because you have reduced their rental income and imposed higher taxes so they have less take home pay). Did you consider that your plan would escalate the rental situation and make some of the landlord and renters worse off?
well said one umbrella group Peter Verry for instance since it does so much. The way homelessness is being handled however many groups is with the usual incompetence we see, moved on from Merrion and th way they are otherwise moved from public view shows us how willing the gov are to make us seem in great recovery for the tourists
The lads and their dog may wait , there are 4600 Syrians etc and assorted Asylum Seekers getting preference and these will have the same rights as Irish people , in effect they will have more rights than these guys , take a bow Aodgain O Riordain and his PR people , the Irish Times and RTE
@Mike Cantwell,
Don’t forget their families who will arrive later, that’ll make it around 30,000. Also there will be far far more arriving next year.
Tough read..why cant that group of 3..almost a family..be treated as a family as opposed to childless single people..if the will was there to help then surely rent supplement x3 could be pooled in the short term to get them off the streets..of all the single people experiencing homelessness how many could genuinely house share with other singles?
How can the homeless crisis be solved? Who will take charge and make decisions ?
Well Alan Kelly claims the government are ‘on top of it,’ so unless he’s a lying, two-faced, deceitful, incompetent piece of crap, there is no crisis.
Peter…
Must have been great before this mob took power they obviously created the homelessness, and all the other ills in Irish society, but not to worry if you (foolishly ) elect SF/ independents….these homeless will dissappear in no time, because people will automatically stop substance abuse, and of course no one will buy an overpriced home (off the plans) they can’t afford. …no more hospital waiting lists (vested interest asside! ) “ordinary working people” love that term, won’t have to pay tax .Enda amd Joans huge pension will be capped at the average industrial wage, (of course the “permanent government will agree to all this, NOT) it will be Jerrys way or Brussels way…..we all know how that will go!! ….etc etc
Defending the indefensible, Bill.
@ Peter… .not defending anything just pointing out that Nirvana is not at the end of the Opposition rainbow as so many people might think. This current lot said much of what the opposition are saying….remember in opposition it’s easy to point to the failure of the current Gov and you can promise ANYTHING FG/LAB promised the sun moon and stars but suddenly found the couldn’t or wouldn’t fulfil the promises, you can’t seriously think the opposition will keep their election promises just because it is SF etc.
Nobody is suggesting that voting for the opposition will solve all problems. But voting this crowd again certainly wont solve anything. They’ve had four years (and counting) to prove they’ll make a difference, and they have come up not only short, but just as bad as the last crowd. Voting the same incompetent and corrupt gombeens into power time and time again is madness. You can be terrified of the opposition all you want, but the current government have been an abject failure when it comes to the homelessness crisis.
Peter…so let’s other incompetent, coruupt gombeens, instead, don’t forget it’s the permanent gov (civil service) who do most of the policy donkey work and is delivered by the ministers in the Dail (we don’t really think mike Noonan or Howlen actually work out a budget!) I wouldnt let some of them TDs wss my car…..PS the same CS are there now as we’re there during the crash and will be there when the next government is elected, and if anyone thinks SF /AAA etc will get rid of the CS the country would grind to a halt in 24 hours as TD would be lucky to get in the Dail DOOR let alone work!!!
Put simply nothing really changes as the Civil Service is there since before independence
It’s always the Irish who end up homeless, every foreigner gets far better treatment than our own people.
Eamon, blaming others is not a solution to any problem. You and Mike Cantwell have expressed similar sentiments. The similarities do not end there. Both of you have relatively new Facebook accounts, both of you have very few Facebook ‘friends’, both of you are Facebook friends with each other, both of you posted similar sentiments on the same day and within a relatively short period. The world is full of coincidences.
@Tap Solny,
Who made you facebook policeman, Mr Pat Lyons? As much as I am flattered to be accused as being the same person as Mike Cantwell it is alas untrue.
I think you’ve too much time on your hands, Pat.
Good answer Eamon. That made me smile.
Busted – lol.
Is that the park Enda sat in last week for twenty minutes? This week the guards arrive to clear it?
Mary that’s last weeks news. Doesn’t Enda walk to work each morning so he can meet the real person going to work & talk to them. That is one way of finding out who is going to work & paying tax so he can spend it on crap.
Yes indeed, they run our homeless out of the parks in case the tourists see them while they accommodate economic migrants in hotels.
beyond disgraceful. . These problems CAN be sorted but enda et Al chose to spend their time spinning yarns about how great they are, opening food banks and slighting other parties for things that either happened decades ago or in a jurisdiction that have nothing to do with them! It’d be funny if it wasn’t so terribly sad.
You previously posted disparaging remarks about Maria Cahill while expressing admiration for Pearse Doherty, a ‘politician’ that is a member of a party that lives in a mythological past that stretches back almost 1,000 years. I think I can understand where you are coming from.
not long to wait now thank god,right across the country people just want the GE, to wipe these two parties out ,along with ff,renua.never seen as many people interested in government behavior for a long time,and they are not impressed with the corruption, lies,and elitism.
Mike is right
how about putting some of the 1916 celebrations money in to fixing up all the empty council houses and giving them out the the people who need them … it won’t solve all of the issues but it would be a start … and I am sure that some people wouldn’t mind sharing a house until they get back on their feet
I must say I find this homeless situation shameful to us as a nation. This situation should not be tolerated we need to look after our own people first. I raise money for the homeless constantly and recently completed 150 k cycle Dublin to Wexford for Peter Mc Verry Trust with many other greatly concerned people and still the situation gets worse. The waste and squandering of money by Government is disgusting and its our money!
Charity begins at home!
Lot of homeless people in Waterford too. All around the country actually.
Even the homeless crisis has to be Dublin centric it seems.
This crisis needs to be tackled. I think drug testing should be used to determine who gets accomaded first.
There’s a big problem in that homeless people who are down on their luck and who are non addicts are being bunched in with addicts, people with mental health problems and much more on floors of Merchants Quay, and in shared accommodation whereby they feel their lives are endangered by aggravated, near psychotic people who could do them serious harm. It’s dangerous and degrading and if you were sane before living through something like it, you won’t be when you spend much time in that environment, which is why most choose an alleyway with a sleeping bag instead, having known someone who went through it and left the country because of it, I can’t say I blame them doing this at all.
The opw and Dcc council own loads and loads of buildings around the city that are boarded up! for example the old driving licence building beside the 4 courts. can this not be transferred into a hostel for homeless people? also open up hostels for the homeless that charge people per night which the government covers completely. they would then be kept clean and safe
lots of available social housing outside of Dublin… why can’t this be used?
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