Nurses to get 12.5% pay increase in fourth-year of internship

The new initiatives benefiting student nurses will cost about €6m annually. Picture: iStock

Student nurses in their fourth-year internship are to get a 12.5% increase in pay.

It will form part of a number of proposals put forward by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly following the completion of a review of payments and allowances for healthcare workers last year.

Under the plan, fourth-year students completing their 36-week internship would earn about 80% of the starting salary of a fully qualified nurse.

Currently, student nurses receive the equivalent of an annual salary of €21,749-€22,249 for their 36-week placements in hospitals during their fourth year of study.

A separate proposal will also see a €100 weekly placement grant for student nurses extended for the duration of the 2021/2022 academic year.

The new initiatives will cost about €6m annually. It is understood Government parties have already been briefed on the plan.

Protest

Student nurses will gather outside Leinster House this afternoon in protest at a delay in the publication of the report into pay, known as the McHugh report.

Carried out by independent mediator Seán McHugh, it was received by the Health Minister earlier this summer but has yet to be published.

Mr McHugh was appointed by the Government following concerns raised by two unions, the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), around issues of allowances and pay for student nurses and midwives.

Both groups have long urged that student nurses be paid the same as healthcare assistants, given they regularly carry out the same duties of full-time healthcare employees, particularly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.