Yesterday I raised with the Taoiseach the refusal of his Government to pay student nurses and midwives who have been working on the front line during this awful pandemic. I told the Taoiseach of the real anger and frustration felt by these students over the outrageous claim that they do not get paid because they do not do real work. I conveyed to the Taoiseach, in their own words, the very real work that student nurses and midwives do. The testimonies I read yesterday show that not only do student nurses and midwives do real work, they do the hardest work. They treat the sick and injured, often in the most difficult circumstances in understaffed and overcrowded hospitals. They are often on their feet for 13-hour days, rushing around performing their tasks with professionalism and compassion.

Over the last eight months, student nurses and midwives have worked incredibly hard in the battle against Covid-19 and the Taoiseach should remember that these students have stepped into the breach and it was the Government that asked them to do so. They have put their health and safety at risk and have given up paid work, which would pay their bills, due to the risk of cross-infection. They have literally held the hands of dying Covid patients as they took their last breath, when their own family members could not be with them. Not alone is this real work and hard work, this is heroic work. Student nurses and midwives have plugged the gaps created by decades of bad health policy from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They have been the glue that has held our already strained health service together during the greatest public health emergency in a century. Their dedication and work have saved lives that might have been lost. The public knows this and doctors and nurses working with these students know it; the only people who do not seem to get it is the Government.

I put their personal testimonies to the Taoiseach yesterday in the hope he would finally acknowledge their work and, more importantly, commit to paying them and paying them properly. The Taoiseach refused to do that and gave me some bogus rationale as to why it could not be done. The truth is that these students are on the roster, they are working and they should be paid. Surely the Taoiseach can accept that. As he was refusing to pay these student nurses and midwives, we hear he has delivered pay increases for already well-paid super junior Ministers and judges, along with pension increases for very well-paid former taoisigh. There is no complexity and no review on that front. It seems it is always very straightforward to cough up when it comes to those at the top. Big money for Ministers, judges and the people who once did the Taoiseach's job, but nothing for student nurses and midwives who have given their blood, sweat and tears for the health and safety of our people. This is shameful and it demonstrates once again whose side Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are on. However, the people know who was there for them when it counted and I do not believe they will stand for this awful treatment of student nurses and midwives. The Taoiseach has a decision to make now. Will he finally tell these student nurses and midwives that they will be paid?

First, we need the truth here. The Deputy and her party campaigned for the reversal of financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, for years, from 2013 onwards. FEMPI involved payments to the people the Deputy just outlined. She knows that, of course, but it suits her to twist and distort the truth about the reversal of FEMPI cuts. Legally, in terms of those cuts, one cannot discriminate between one group and another. However, one can delay as far as legally possible, which is what the Government has done. In 2017, legislation passed by this House, which the Deputy participated in, meant that by the end of December, the remaining FEMPI cuts had to be reversed in respect of the small group left. At the time, if it had been done in 2016, it would have meant the same thing that is happening today would have happened four or five years earlier. It was delayed deliberately because they were on the higher end of the scale.

On student nurses, I never said they are not doing real work. I never used that phrase yet the Deputy comes in here and says I did. In terms of the testimonies the Deputy and other Deputies have brought forward, they should be forwarded to me and the HSE because, in some instances, they represent an abuse and exploitation of student nurses. What I said yesterday in the Dáil was not bogus. The Deputy has deliberately avoided the question of whether we want a degree programme or an apprentice model. Her line seems to be it is okay to go back to the era when nurses did menial tasks and were on the bottom rung of the ladder in our hospitals and in the medical hierarchy, deferring to consultants and so on. The idea of the introduction of a degree programme was to end that era, professionalise nursing and give opportunities in nurse education so nurses could take their rightful place in the overall structures within our health services. That was the objective and the idea behind that was that first year students would have clinical placements of six weeks at a time. They were never meant to be working during those six weeks. If nurses are rostered for a 13- or ten-hour shift, they should be paid. Nursing directors in hospitals are disputing that and the Minister for Health is investigating that.

There is a core question here. In my view, nurse education is vital for the progression and advancement of the profession so that nurses can take their rightful place in the overall framework within our hospitals. The cases referenced yesterday should be sent in and there should be an investigation because no first year student should be treating a Covid patient, which I have said repeatedly. If the Deputy has evidence that they are treating dying Covid patients, in my view, that is wrong. That is an abuse. No hospital and no director of nursing should enable that to take place, particularly in the second wave of Covid, which did not have the same impact as the first wave on hospitalisations or ICU occupancy.

We are not refusing to pay anybody. We have initiated a review of the allowances, which will be finished by the end of this month and will result in higher allowances for student nurses. We have applied the pandemic unemployment payment to student nurses who cannot work part time in other workplaces because of the fear of cross-contamination. We have also provided other financial supports to meet additional costs as a result of working in a Covid environment. That is our commitment but we also want to ring-fence student nurses from having to work in the first place. Does the Deputy accept that principle in relation to the nursing degree programme? I would like a clear statement from her in relation to that principle and its implementation with regard to the degree programme.

Here are the truths. The truth is that student nurses and midwives are working hard. The truth is that our system and the services patients rely on would grind to a halt, in some cases, without their effort. The truth is the Taoiseach has chosen to disregard and disrespect the fact that these students work extremely hard. The only abuse at play here is the abuse of not paying these student nurses and midwives for their honest effort and work. The Taoiseach says he is not refusing to pay them. The only logical conclusion, then, is that he will pay them but to pay them he must recognise their work and effort. I will state clearly that professionalisation of nursing should not be used as an alibi or a cover for pauperising these workers.

It is lost on no one that student nurses and midwives get reviews, delays and denials-----

Thank you, Deputy, but you are over time.

-----but for the great and the good, for the hoi polloi, there is no delay. They get their money. They get their increases. The sheer unfairness-----

Deputy McDonald, you are over time.

-----of that is manifest to one and all.

The Deputy is deliberately dishonest in her presentation of the story and the narrative. There was a delay for the great and the good. It was a long delay. If the Deputy had had her way, there would have been less of a delay, given her desire to reverse FEMPI a long time ago. She knows that, but she chooses not to say it. She also has refused and ignored my central point. She says that we cannot have an alibi, but it is not an alibi. She has to make up her mind about how we can create a learning environment for nursing in the modern era. I do not believe it is right that nursing degree students should have to do menial tasks left, right and centre outside their clinical placements and I do not believe the health service has to depend on a six-week clinical placement for first year students or second year students to support the service. Personnel nurse managers are employed and specifically paid to ring-fence students from having to work and ensure that they are learning while in the hospitals. Fourth year nursing students get paid. That is also being reviewed in terms of looking at an upward increase. The Deputy knows and should say that no first year student should be treating a Covid patient. No second year student should either. Nor should they be rostered for night duty.

Thank you, Taoiseach, but we are over time.

That is an exploitation and abuse of the students, but the Deputy will not call that out because it does not suit her political story.

Please, could we have a little co-operation with the time limits?