In recent days the Taoiseach has sought to pit nurses against nurses by claiming that student nurses are being exploited by other nurses on hospital wards. That statement is simply not true. The reality is that student nurses are plugging the gaps in a health system that is under severe pressure. Student nurses do amazing work. The Tánaiste has worked in hospitals and I am sure he has seen that at first hand.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, is crystal clear on the issue. It notes that it is no use pitting nurses against nurses, whether they are in training or not. Phil Ní Sheaghdha, the INMO general secretary, recently stated:

Our students are being taken for granted. They are facing huge workloads and risking Covid infection. And while they are doing indispensable work, they are getting no financial recognition for their efforts.

She went on to state:

Extra work, serious risk, and other sources of income being cut: student nurses and midwives are getting a raw deal. It is beyond time to respect their contribution and pay them. The message is simple: stop exploiting student nurses and midwives.

The Tánaiste can see that the INMO is very clear on this issue. It is not nurses who are exploiting nurses, they are being exploited by the system.

The Taoiseach also said that he wanted examples of student nurses performing specific duties. Let me recount one of the many examples that we in Sinn Féin have received from student nurses in recent days. One nurse, Marie, contacted us to say:

As a first-year nurse, I would work all morning getting patients washed, showered and dressed alone, as there was often no healthcare assistants. Then I had to record vital signs for a whole ward, which was usually up to 30 patients.

In second year I remember one specific time, after a patient of ours sadly passed away, we had to get the patient ready for the family to see them. I washed the patient with the nurse, cleaned his face, dressed him in a new gown and lay him out comfortably so he looked peaceful and ready for his family. That was my first time of many doing that. I carried on with the rest of my day, caring for other patients. I drove home that night in silence.

Marie goes on to say:

I remember in third year dealing with a patient who had a major haemorrhage on the general medical ward, that was waiting for a bed to open in ICU. The patient went into cardiac arrest. I ran for the crash cart. I alerted the nurse's station to call the cardiac team and I did chest compressions to try and keep the patient alive. The patient, unfortunately, died. I drove home in silence that night and couldn't talk to my mother.

Is any of that not real work? That is what student nurses are asking. In particular, they are asking that of the Taoiseach following the comments he made.

The Taoiseach indicated that a review is under way. I had a look back at the replies given by the Minister for Health to questions on this issue. In October, he responded to a parliamentary question by stating that the review would be concluded in the coming days. It is now the middle of December. Why has it taken so long for this issue to be addressed? It is one that must be addressed.

If any additional payments are to be made to student nurses and midwives, will they be backdated to the beginning of the new academic year? Could the Tánaiste respond to the student nurses who may be watching, to other nurses on the wards and to the people who genuinely believe that this exploitation of student nurses must come to an end? Will the Government reverse its decision and ensure that they are properly remunerated?

I thank the Deputy very much for raising this important issue. From my time working in the public health service and as Minister for Health, I am very aware of the contribution student nurses and midwives make to the health service. I am also aware of the limitations regarding what a student can do and provide in the health service, whether it is a therapy student, a nursing student, a medical student or any other student.

There has been a lot of debate on this issue in the past week or so but there have not been as many facts as there ought to have been, so let me set out five facts of which we ought to be aware. The motion in the Dáil last week was party politics. It was non-binding. It was unfunded. If it had passed, it would not have been worth a single euro to a single student nurse. It was designed to make the Government look bad, the Opposition look good and do nothing at all for student nurses. Public pay is not voted on in the Dáil, ever. Public pay is negotiated between the Government and trade unions and negotiations are now under way on the next pay deal.

Student nurses are paid for their fourth year, for 32 weeks, and they are counted as part of the staff. In the first wave of the pandemic, the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and I, as Taoiseach, took a decision to take on student nurses in the early years of their course as healthcare assistants. We did so because we thought the hospitals might be overwhelmed on foot of the surge we were anticipating. Thankfully, that surge never happened, but it was still the right decision to take them on as healthcare assistants. That was only ever supposed to be on a temporary basis and we said so at the time. We have provided the pandemic unemployment payment to student nurses who worked as healthcare assistants in nursing homes and who had to give up those jobs because we asked them not to be in two clinical settings. The pandemic unemployment payment is being paid.

Student nurses who are in years 1, 2 and 3, like all other students on degree courses, are not paid. They spend a lot of time in lectures, laboratories and libraries and on supervised work experience or placements. When one pursues a degree course, it is not the norm to be paid for that. This is a degree course now; it is not an apprenticeship or a cadetship. That is a very different and older model. We decided we wanted to move away from that model 20 years ago after the Commission on Nursing reported. However, I do think that student nurses should be paid where they are acting up, filling in for staff nurses or doing the work of staff nurses because wards or clinical areas are understaffed. That does happen in education, for example, where students are doing the higher diploma in education, HDip. Student teachers do not get paid for their work experience, but they are sometimes paid when they supervise or take over for a teacher who is absent. In those circumstances, it is right that student nurses should be paid for the work they do. That includes those in first, second and third year.

This is an issue on which the Government is engaging and we want to continue to engage on it. We will speak to the INMO and SIPTU's health division about this. As Deputy Doherty stated, a review of allowances is under way. As is always the case, matters of public pay will be negotiated between the Government, on the one hand, and the unions, on the other. That is how it is done. That is how we all want it to be done. It is the best way to do it. It is not based on a motion in the Dáil. That is just pure politics.

It is politics that have left student nurses unpaid. The Tánaiste's coalition party in government put out a statement on its Facebook page suggesting that student nurses are not involved in real work. It was very hurtful. Many student nurses have contacted Deputies across the Chamber, particularly those in opposition, to outline the real work that they do in hospital wards.

Other staff nurses have also contacted us, along with doctors and consultants, as I raised with the Tánaiste last week, and they acknowledge that if it was not for the student nurses, the system would simply collapse because it is under severe pressure.

Last week, a motion was brought forward by Teachtaí Dála, messengers of the people, and they carried a clear message to this Parliament that the public wants to make sure that our student nurses, who have stepped into the breach in the middle of a pandemic and put themselves and their families at risk, should be rewarded, and should not be expected to staff our wards during this pandemic and be paid nothing for it. That is what was contained in the motion put forward by Teachtaí Dála. The Government proposed an amendment that gave no commitment to paying student nurses for the work they have done.

This is a political issue because the Government has decided to turn its face against it. The Government is now coming under sustained pressure. We will not give up until student nurses are properly remunerated for the work they have done. The Government should hear the calls loud and clear from the public right across the State that they fully back the student nurses in this demand.

The Deputy has gone over his time.

The Deputy's response is again emotion over the facts, which is the typical conduct of populists, and it in many ways proved the veracity of my response. I set down five facts and the Deputy questioned none of them. The way he spoke almost implied that he was talking about a Sinn Féin motion but it was not. It came from People Before Profit and Sinn Féin had little or no role in it but it is trying to take over the issue for political gain.

As I mentioned, the vote last week was on a non-binding and unfunded motion. Had it passed, it would not have been worth a euro to a single student nurse. Public pay is negotiated between the Government and unions. That is the way it is done and that is the way it should be done. Student nurses are paid for their fourth year. We paid student nurses in their first, second and third years during the pandemic as healthcare assistants because we thought hospitals might be overwhelmed. Thankfully, they were not and they are not now. We pay the pandemic unemployment payment to student nurses who were asked to give up jobs in nursing homes.

It is not the norm for people doing a degree course to be paid for their years as students. It is the case for apprentices and cadets but not for people doing a degree course.

Thank you.

As I stated, where student nurses are filling in for staff nurses, doing the work of a staff nurse or acting up and filling in, I strongly believe they should be paid for that work-----

We are over the time allowed.

-----just as student teachers are paid for substitution duties. We are happy to engage in a grown-up, fact-based and mature way with the unions, as we always have, to come to a resolution on this.

I can keep interrupting or I can ask the Tánaiste to keep to the time allowed.

My apologies.