Student Nurses (Pay) Bill 2021: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2021-02-19 ============================================================ Annie Hoey (LAB), Agricultural Panel I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am sharing time with Senator Sherlock. I am proud that today a student issue is the subject of the first piece of legislation I have brought to this House. I hope that the Senator for students is earning her stripes. The Student Nurses (Pay) Bill 2021 is very simple. Its purpose is to ensure a rate of pay for student nurses when they are working commensurate to the rate of pay of a healthcare assistant, HCA. Since being elected to the Seanad in April 2020, in the midst of a global health crisis, I have been imploring the Ministers for Health and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to recognise the role being played by our student nurses and midwives. I have raised the matter in the Chamber numerous times. I have raised it in the health committee. I have asked the HSE and both Ministers about the matter in writing. I have done everything I can to keep this issue on the agenda. I have said it before but it bears repeating that a bualadh bos mór is not enough for our student nurses and midwives. They have been working at the coalface of this pandemic and caring for vulnerable patients on Covid-19 wards. What is more, they have done all of that while knowing that being on those very wards puts themselves far and above the average risk of contracting Covid-19. I will also take a moment to address an issue that has been raised with me. Despite working - yes, I believe that what student nurses and midwives do is actual work and I will not be shifted from that view - according to reports given to me by student nurses and midwives, the vaccine roll-out has not included student nurses and midwives in their first, second and third years. Not only are we expecting them to work for free during a global pandemic, we are also adding insult to injury by not including the first, second and third years in the early vaccination roll-out. That is disgraceful. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2021-02-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:04+00:00 Sitting date: 2021-02-19