Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1849. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 1356 of 24 March 2021 (details supplied), if he will guarantee that student radiographers will be treated the same as student nurses and midwives in receiving standardised travel and accommodation allowances, a pandemic payment grant and an internship payment in their fourth year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19133/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As previously stated, radiography students do not receive an allowance to support time spent on placement as part of their course and there are no plans to change this.

Student nurses and midwives are unique in that there is, in the final year, a paid salary when they are specifically employed on an internship placement. In the context of COVID-19, I appointed Professor Tom Collins to undertake a short-term review of the current allowances available to student nurses and midwives. His report was submitted to me on 31 December 2020.

The key recommendation in this Report is that an additional and exceptional Student Nurse/Midwife Pandemic Placement Grant of €100 per week for each week spent on supernumerary placement be introduced from January 2021 for the duration of the pandemic. I have confirmed my full acceptance of the Report’s recommendations and my Department has directly engaged with nursing/midwifery union representatives in this respect.

The position on the implementation of the Collins Report remains that I have accepted the recommendations of the report and my Department officials are continuing to engage with representative bodies.

Again, I wish to acknowledge the extremely important work that student radiographers are doing at present and the valuable contribution they are making to the fight against Covid-19.