Only one hospital in country has paid frontline staff €1k pandemic bonus 

HSE hospitals will be among the first to pay staff the €1,000 tax-free bonus, but voluntary hospitals have to wait to receive the money from the HSE. File picture: PA

Beaumont Hospital in Dublin is the only hospital in the country to date to have paid frontline healthcare staff their €1,000 pandemic bonus, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).

Some frontline staff will receive the payment in the middle of this month but the majority of hospitals who pay monthly will give the bonus to nurses and midwives at the end of the month, according to senior INMO sources. 

HSE hospitals will pay staff first, but voluntary hospitals such as the Mercy University Hospital and South Infirmary/Victoria University Hospitals in Cork have to wait to receive the money from the HSE first before they can pay staff the special once-off tax-free lump sum.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly told reporters on the final day of the INMO annual delegate conference that, ideally, he would have liked if the payment was made “months ago":  

I’d like it paid today. I would have liked it paid three months ago, I think we all would — but first we had to get it right. 

"The HSE is now processing it through the payroll systems is my understanding.”

He denied that the delay in paying the bonus had turned what should have been a good news story into a “protracted process”, as claimed by the INMO president Karen McGowan minutes before.

“It is a good news story, it’s €1,000,” said the minister. "As a recognition it pales compared to the huge amount of work that the frontline healthcare workers have done through the pandemic. It is an effort by Government to recognise how much they have done not just for patients but for our entire country."

INMO president Karen McGowan said the delay in issuing the bonus payment 'had taken the good news out of the announcement'.  File picture

“We all wanted the payment made as quickly as possible.

"However, we were approached by many of the stakeholders so said they wanted to talk it out in more detail. They had very real questions about who got paid, in what way, some of the initial proposals in terms of people who hadn’t worked through the whole time. 

"Some of the representative bodies said there should be more, I agreed with that, we increased the minimum amounts so really we all would have liked it to have been done six weeks ago or whatever the right time was but it was important that we got it right." The minister went on to say: 

We’ve listened very carefully over the last while to get it right and now we are proceeding with the payment. 

 In his speech to the INMO earlier, the minister thanked nurses and midwives for “being the very best of our nation.” “I was asked outside, quite rightly, when the €1,000 payment would be made. I want it made immediately. I’ve asked that the payment now is processed as soon as possible and I would expect it to be arriving in your pay cheques and in your bank accounts very, very soon,” he added.

Addressing delegates after the minister, Karen McGowan said the delay in giving nurses the bonus “had taken the good news out of the announcement” and called for the payment to be extended to staff who had joined the frontline since June 2021, GP nurses, and those in private hospitals. “Government must come up with some mechanism so those workers can be paid,” she said.

Ms McGowan also slammed the “cumbersome” pay deal implementation processes that sees nurses “once again” having to justify what improvements they have brought to the health service over the last two years. “Pay nurses better for skills that are competitive. Implementations are being dragged through the ditch to see what falls off. As Minister for Health you should not stand over that,” she told him, adding that “nothing short of the full implementation of the reversal of the Haddington Road hours” would be acceptable to INMO members.

Referring to Thursday’s motion calling for sick leave with pay to be extended for nurses suffering from long Covid, the minister said “there can be no cliff edge on this". 

 “I’m aware that long Covid is a very real issue for many nurses, midwives and healthcare staff across the country. Some of these have remained absent on special leave with pay in respect of long Covid so I want to assure you that officials from my department and the department of public expenditure and reform are engaging on this issue in advance of the cessation date of the special leave with pay,” he said, garnering a hesitant ripple of applause.