Last Wednesday, the Taoiseach and his Government insulted the student nurses and midwives of this country by voting down the Solidarity-People Before Profit motion, which was drawn up in conjunction with those student nurses and midwives, calling for them to be paid. The Taoiseach has since insulted them by suggesting that they are not doing real work and that he is protecting their education, when we have repeatedly given him dozens of testimonies from those student nurses and midwives about the extent of their work, about how they are being exploited in terms of working with Covid-19 patients, getting Covid-19 themselves, working with the sick, the dying and mothers giving birth and about the number of hours they work. The Taoiseach has also insulted them by suggesting that they are getting allowances when huge numbers of them are not getting allowances at all. Even if they do get them, those allowances would not cover their accommodation or travel costs.

The Taoiseach has added the final insult by refusing to pay the student nurses and midwives who protected us on the front line of the Covid-19 pandemic and signing off on an unbelievable restoration of pensions and of increases of up to €15,000 for former taoisigh and civil servants who are in already in receipt of payments in excess of €100,000. That is simply shocking beyond belief. In doing this, the Taoiseach has further insulted those to whom I refer by betraying the promise in the section of the programme for Government relating to healthcare workers in which it is stated that the Government would reward our healthcare workers for the work they have done on the front line of Covid-19 and for their dedication and professionalism. He has betrayed what he said directly to me in this House on 20 October to the effect that he would return them to the healthcare assistant, HCA, rate of pay which had been agreed during the period of Covid-19 earlier in the year. In fact, the first thing the Government did after penning the words in the programme for Government was to take that HCA rate off them. The Taoiseach should stop with the spin, stop believing the fantasy he is being told by the HSE and listen to the voices of the student nurses and midwives.

Will the Taoiseach reinstate the HCA rate that was given to the student nurses and midwives earlier in the year and that he took back from them as one of his first actions in office? Will he dispense with the nonsense that there is a choice between getting paid and getting a degree? Even in Britain, nurses pursuing degree courses get significant bursaries and do not have to pay excessive fees. Will the Taoiseach stop insulting the intelligence of student nurses and midwives, respect the work they do and pay them for their placements?

First of all, I do not insult people. I do not go about trying to insult people. The Deputy referred to the cases raised by him, Deputy Paul Murphy and others yesterday. I told him he should send details of those cases to the HSE in the form of complaints that require investigation. It was stated here yesterday that a student nurse had to console a mother at the bedside of her dead baby. If that happened, it demands an investigation because that is an abuse of a student nurse clinical placement. It should not have happened. That is not spin. I have spoken to nurse educators across the country. I have been making a fundamental point in this regard. I made it yesterday and I make it again today. I believe in what I am saying because I brought in the programme in the first instance. If we want to change the programme and go back to the apprenticeship model, well and good; let us say that. I am genuinely of the view, however, that this would be a retrograde step for nursing.

Of course, Deputy Boyd Barrett juxtaposes this matter, as only he can, with the final of the reversal of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI. That reversal was something he wanted to happen in 2016. He put a motion to the Dáil at that time to the effect that the FEMPI Act be repealed in its entirety. Does the Deputy know the implications of that? It would have paid the higher earners and higher pensioners back in 2016. If he had his way, they would have had their pension cuts reversed back in 2016 and not 2021, which is now the case. The only reason the Minister of Public Expenditure and Reform brought that in was because he had no legal alternative but to do so on foot of the Act that was passed in 2017. The latter states that the longest this reversal could be put off was to December 2020 and then a date would have to be named for the final reversal of FEMPI.

Maybe a bit of honesty in the debate would not go amiss from Deputy Boyd Barrett's perspective. He loves playing the divisive card and pitting one group against another. He wanted FEMPI ended in its entirety back in 2016 and stated that it was one of the hallmarks of repressive regimes, even dictatorships. He wanted it all gone in 2016, irrespective of high earners or low learners within the public service. The fact is that the reversal for highest earners has been delayed the longest period possible. I have the quotes from the Deputy. I went through his quotes at the time in the Dáil and in The Irish Times. That was his position.

Coming back to the student nurses, the same applies to medical students, who have far more clinical placement hours. The same applies to pharmacology students, radiography students, physiotherapy students and occupational students. This goes to the heart of the model of education we want for healthcare personnel and professionals at all levels and in different disciplines. It is not as simple as the Deputy was trying to make out.

In the first wave, the HCA rate was paid because student nurses were formally brought on to fill rosters and to work. We have been told by nursing directors and the HSE that did not occur in the second wave of the pandemic and that the nurse education aspects of the clinical placements must be protected.

I thank the Taoiseach.

Surely, the Deputy would agree that first, second or third year students should not have to do the kind of work mentioned by the Deputy.

Taoiseach, we are over time.

He keeps ignoring that point I made to him. They should be protected.

I thank the Taoiseach. I am going to move on to the Independent-----

I am sorry, I have to respond.

I beg your pardon, Deputy Boyd Barrett.

One student said: "My name is Conor. I am a first-year nursing student. In the last week I have had to wash, feed, lift and dress Covid-positive patients unsupervised." Another, Michelle, said:

I finished my final six weeks' unpaid placement of fourth year. I was doing between 70 to 80 hours per week for six weeks, sometimes finishing placement at 8.00 p.m. and going directly into a 12-hour night duty sleepover shift, most of the time not sleeping as I had to get up and assist people with their needs.

I could go on; I have dozens of these testimonies. The Taoiseach does not need to talk to the HSE. I have invited him - and I invite him again - any day this week or in the next week to meet with the hundreds of student nurses who will give him the accounts directly of how it is systematic. It is not an isolated instance; it is systematic.

We were in favour of FEMPI restoration for nurses, teachers and ordinary low- and middle-income front-line workers who were robbed as a result of austerity cuts. We always said that nobody - politicians, top civil servants - should be getting pensions or pay from the public purse of over €100,000.

The Taoiseach should not spin that nonsense to deflect from the shocking unwillingness to pay student nurses and midwives and should instead keep to the commitment to giving them the healthcare assistant rate that the Government took off them but that they were given earlier this year.

The bottom line is that if the Deputy had had his way in 2016, the higher earning pensioners and public servants would have had their full restoration at that time.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

That is a fact. One cannot legally discriminate between the two and the Deputy knows that but it does not suit him to spin it that way or to tell the truth in respect of it. He read out the case of a first-year student who had to wash, dress and feed a Covid patient. Does the Deputy think that is okay? I do not. I think it is a scandal.

It is the Government's health service.

It is a scandal that is wrong and it should be investigated. I am amazed that the Deputy thinks it is okay.

We do not think it is okay.

He does think it is okay. He is saying they should be paid. My view is they should never have been asked in the first instance to do that and I want it investigated. I want the Deputy to give me the details of that case because we need to get to the bottom of this.

I have invited the Taoiseach to meet the people involved.

I have said to the Deputy that if any hospital employs a student nurse on a roster, he or she should be paid. It is completely undermining a degree programme if he is telling me that a first year student in a clinical-----

Does the Taoiseach want to meet them?

I am not disagreeing. I am saying the Deputy is missing the point. If that happened, it is a scandal. It should not happen because it is exploiting the student and it represents an abuse of the student.