merrion street

The Minister for Health, Simon Harris TD, today announced that nurses who graduated between 2011 and 2015 will have the incremental credit for their 36 week student placement restored. The Minister said:

“I met with a group of graduate nurses recently and it was clear to me that this issue was severely impacting on their conditions and morale. Since then, I have worked closely with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, to address this and I am delighted to announce today that these nurses will now receive the increment they so deserve.

“I am particularly pleased that this restoration will also apply to nurses who graduated during these years but may have left the country and might be thinking about coming home. We have major challenges recruiting and retaining nurses in this country but I believe this is a small step forward. We need our nurses to stay and we need our nurses to come home.

“This decision will take effect from 1 January 2017 and approximately 4,000 nurses who graduated between 2011 and 2015 will be eligible and will add over €1,000 to their salaries. I understand we need to do more and my Department continues to work with the HSE to focus on a wide range of measures to progress recruitment and retention of nursing staff.”

The Minister also pointed out that this is the latest positive measure which has been introduced in the last year to boost the recruitment and retention of nurses. These measures include the first stage of pay restoration under the Lansdowne Road Agreement, an increase in the rate of pay for the student nursing placement to 70% of the first point of the staff nurse pay scale, permanent contracts for graduating nurses and additional pay in return for taking on some duties from doctors.