Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has confirmed that student nurses who lost employment due to Covid-19 will be eligible for pandemic unemployment payments (PUP).
This will be applied from the date of loss of employment.
The Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation (INMO) had raised the issue of loss of income among student nurses due to fewer opportunities for part-time work, particularly in nursing homes.
About 4000 student nurses have been working during the pandemic in the Republic. They had briefly received the healthcare assistant rate of €14 an hour during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic but this was withdrawn.
The move comes after the Government was accused of treating student nurses and midwives who prop up the health services like “skivvies” and “slave labour”.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party were condemned in the Dáil on Wednesday for failing to pay students for their work on frontline health services.
Solidarity TD Mick Barry warned that treating the 4,000 student nurses and midwives like “skivvies” might save the State money in the short term but would be a huge cost in the medium term or even sooner.
He also claimed the State was engaging in gender inequality by failing to pay the student nursing body, the vast majority of whom are women.
More to follow...
