Contracts by their nature are normally for a fixed term. Once the time is up it may not be renewed. That is the nature of the beast and it is how contracts work all over the private sector.

@Reg – Yes, I appreciate this. The point is that this graduate scheme is not actually providing *new* jobs. It’s just replacing the people currently in the system with new, lower paid people.

Agree totally Joanna only thing I fear is that there will be a big uptake of these positions . Mature students are not going to go away . Students I know are going for these positions . Going to denigrate profession altogether . I fear it will create a lot of animosity in wards . Graduate all responsibility low pay , care assistants no responsibility nearly double pay. Also certain nurses don’t care who on ward as long as somebody there taking situation I am alright could not care less that fellow colleague poorly paid . Hoping grads don’t take these but fear they will

I’d say those jobs will be gone by Monday.

Doesn’t matter what you say Michael
Your thoughs on any subject are null and void after your dispicable comment a couple of days ago!

Frank
What does null and void mean? Does it mean that I cannot make contributions or you don’t understand them?

It means that when you use a derogatory word to describe people with mental or physical handicaps and your not man enough to apologise for doing so, anything you say has no creedence. you made a few bob out of the boom so what, but it would be better spent on lessons on common decency than on your your internet usage. Its your kids i feel sorry for, i just hope they have a better role model

Well said bouncyjohn, it’s all about equity I worked in NZ in 2000 and was paid less then when I was a third year student in 1993 in ireland, but we all were.
The mentoring and grad programmes there were better than they are here now.
It was the same when I worked in the UK and OZ the thing is equity.

A physiotherapy graduate may well start on €34k but as there are no graduate physio positions it’s irrelevant.

Not at all irrelevant. My point was that the way in which nurses have traditionally been treated in this country is in complete disparity to the other health professionals. This is not some fantastic training opportunity for nurses this is an exploitative measure as the conditions and level of responsibility attached to these contracts will not differ from other qualified staff

^
Populist throwaway comment with no basis in fact or thought process behind it.

Yes Al K We’ll put the inmates in charge of the asylum. Wonderful !

Al
The HSE is a Public Service Employer. It is not a Democracy and never could be. It is also a part of a bankrupt State. The danger to existing employees of the current whinging is that in an effort to achieve equality the Department might reduce all Nursing and relative employee garage salaries to the new entry level. Be very careful about your wishes.

@Ferghal .. Nursing salary in the UK / NHS is about £15,600 starting off … they won’t be going to the UK for better pay.

Ferghal, no doubt some will go to the UK as many have had to do over the last few years when there has been little or no recruitment. Now that there are jobs available others will stay as they wish to remain in Ireland.

Wrong nursing starting after qualification is 26,000 sterling. With ratio 1-6, in Ireland ratio is 1-12.

Susan unfortunately those agency nurses/midwives seem to be gone already while the HSE await the 1,000 I know people who have had agency shifts cancelled at short notice in the last two weeks. It’s a disgrace.

We still have a few around who’ve been with us for up to a year on lines of off duty as part of the WTEs
Total disgrace to let these people go and pay others who cannot really replace them a meaning less wage

Student nurses do placements during the first 3 years of training within HSE hospitals, as extra numbers on top of staff, we then do a year internship as a full member of staff, replacing a fully paid member of staff…. If we were not experienced enough we would not be awarded our licences. There is no argument that this is getting us experience as we would have the very same responsibility as a staff nurse that is there 30 years, only paid a hell of a lot less and no doubt would be simply replaced after 2 years with another sucker willing to work for less, and no doubt other fully paid members of staff that leave will probably also be replaced with lower paid too…. It’s a vicious circle and one i hope graduates will stand their ground on for all our sakes!

Pat your missing the point completely nurses and midwives have already lost work while the HSE are waiting to fill these contracts. If they fill these contracts it will happen again in two years our profession will become two tiered like it was in the uk with enrolled nurses years ago BUT we will all have the same qualification and do the same job have the same registration no one will know who’s being paid 20% less as they’ll be doing 100% plus work just like the rest if us. That’s what it boils down to and in two years its good luck and thanks for them and the new batch will probably start at a lower salary.

Yep lets just keep on shipping those well educated graduates out if the country but replace them with incoming alternatives at a low pay. Genius

You obviously know a lot about nursing in the uk you can not even get pay grades correct . They are not called levels in uk for 10 years they are called bands . Any graduate from this country or uk EEC starts at band 5 pay scale which is 21700 to 27000 sterling per year . Level 3 as you say is the old state enrolled nurse so get your facts correct . Should know as I am band 5 only graduated last year and working in NHS

To be fair existing nurses have taken a hit in the way of pay cuts, pension levies and the additional taxes that all of us have had to endure. Reducing it further when you have a mortgage, child care costs, car loan etc etc. is difficult. Graduate recruits by and large have none of these costs. It’s tough but the country is broke.

Good man Reg. That old Public service sense of entitlement chugs on strongly. Everyone in this economy has taken a hit the private sector nore than anyone. You people will not be happy until the only people working in the economy are public servants. Get real we can’t afford 20billion a year for you guys and the ‘service’ you provide is certainly not worth it.

I’m not a public servant John. I have my own business and in 2012, according to my P60 will have earned what one of these new graduate nurses will earn. I’ve been working for nearly 30 years and this will be the least I have earned in many years. However I do have sympathy for nurses and other similar public sector workers who have taken cuts, they were necessary though. Personally I think they should get on with it and stop this sense of entitlement that many of them seem to have. If they don’t want to take the jobs then go do something else because others will take them I’m sure.

Reg: You are missing the point. It is not as if they are adding 1000 nurses to the system, they are simply using this as a means to get rid of higher earning (although still low wage) nurses and re-enter them under this lower wage. There is no job creation – just a means to use desperate graduates. Nurses work incredibly hard and wards are understaffed – they do an incredible job caring for the lives of the patients and regardless of whether they have mortgages and childcare costs or not this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t received adequate remuneration for this work.

Additionally – you seem to be under the impression that all graduate nurses are care free 20 somethings – completely disregarding the mature students, many of whom have mortgages and families to support.

CABK – Firstly, I am well aware that nurses do a great job and should be sufficiently rewarded in normal circumstances. Secondly I did use the term “by and large” when I discussed the outgoings one might have. And finally, I did not miss any points. I have not discussed or expressed an opinion on whether these were additional jobs or not.

“Personally I think they should get on with it and stop this sense of entitlement that many of them seem to have. If they don’t want to take the jobs then go do something else ”

This shows you are missing the point entirely. I have never met a nurse with a ‘sense of entitlement’ they just want to be paid fairly for the work that they do, which is incredibly difficult and very different to someone sitting at a desk or doing manual work, given their responsibility for other people’s lives.

Plus after all their training the least they should be able to expect from our country is jobs at an adequate level of pay reflecting the work they do rather than your suggestion that they ‘do something else’ if they are being treated unfairly.

Finally, you say about ‘normal circumstances’. If anything these ‘non normal’ circumstances make things harder for nurses given staffing shortages, so I fail to see why having to work harder and longer and in more difficult circumstances because the country is broke means they should be paid less….

Sorry Reg,

You were so far into their corner I felt you had to be one. It’s difficult for public servants to see themselves as Private sector people do. As the private sector ( value added part of the economy) shrinks all we hear from the protected sector is ‘ Me Me Me’ I get pissed off listening to ‘ Front Line ‘ people complaining about the sacrifices they make and the fact that they have to work unsociable shifts and overtime.( which of course they signed up for) Of the 535 k people either on the dole or in makey up jobs at least 80% would love to have some of the Front Line peoples problems. I suppose it’s all relative

Not true reg, a lot of student nurses are mature and have all of the costs u pointed out. Why does this government make it so hard to just have a living in this country!

CABK
So you believe that nurses are entitled to a job and entitled to a particular level of pay after their years of training. What planet are you from? We don’t admit people into Nursing Degree Courses with any form of employment guarantee never mind a particular salary level. In fact there are only two types of Third Level Student with that attitude and one would clearly be Nurses and the other Teachers.
Both of these professions have a clear and large “entitlement” streak and both are predominantly made up of women particularly at the Primary level.
Any Society will have an ebb and flow over the years in terms of the numbers required in providing Public Services and young Graduates should be delighted that there are any vacancies whether the salaries have been reduced or not at the Entry Levels.

No Michael, I did not say that. I was referring to Reg’s point that if they don’t like what they are being offered they should ‘ go do something else’. Also I said that they should expect that jobs should be available at an adequate wage level – not a job for every nurse who ever entered a course and graduated but jobs for them in this country on an adequate salary.

Also graduate nurses are nurses not graduates – they don’t sit around at a desk or do half the work of those more experienced than them – they do the same work as fully experienced nurses from Day 1 – therefore they are not graduates in the sense that graduate accountants and bankers etc are.

We disagree on your point though that ‘young graduates should be happy to get any kind of work for any salary level. As I said before they are not graduates with half the responsibility or workload – they are nurses and therefore should not be happy with a temporary contract on 80% of the starting wage.

Additionally, I’m not too sure what you mean with your rant about women and teachers and nurses and a sense of entitlement etc but just to point out that I personally have seen no evidence of this with nurses and I am not a nurse – I am a finance graduate, I have just myself been in hospital and had a close family member hospitalized for a large period of time this year and so have seen first hand the work they do.

Finally, re your comment “Any Society will have an ebb and flow over the years in terms of the numbers required in providing Public Services” – some of the other commentators and indeed the statement from the nurses union have lots of information on what this actually means – and it is nothing to do with a change in the requirement of numbers needed.

You should probably look up how the nursing degree works – there is a huge focus on placement and hence experience – in particular nurses spend almost their entire final year in the hospital. This is not the same as a graduate job for engineers or finance/marketing graduates – these nurses are responsible for the lives and care of sick patients and deserve a wage that reflects this responsibility and also the long stressful working hours they do. Nurses work incredibly hard.

@cabk and i suppose they are the only people who work hard.

So part of their training is on the job, much like electricians, accountants etc .. but they don’t go straight in to the average salary upon graduation.

@Gggordon your examples make no sense. To pick one:

Are you honestly comparing being a nurse to being an accountant? Firstly, accountants enter on a graduate lower pay scale as they get exams and books and time off all paid for them in the terms of their contracts – this is the case with ACCA, ACA, CIMA. So this time off, payment for exams and membership to a body and books is not included in their pay scale. Additionally, they are paid less as they are not given the same responsibility of those who have more experience than them – this includes no responsibility for final output of the job and no responsibility for management and organization of the job, rather following tasks. This is the reason why graduate accountants does not go onto the average pay scale upon graduation

Nurses however, do the exact same job as those who have worked there for years and now even more so they are doing more than that given staffing shortages.

they do 86weeks on the wards as student nurses so they are fully experienced, dey are giving the same work as a senior nurse, work the same hours if not more and get treated the same so what the difference?