When student nurse Christopher O’Dwyer was on work placement as part of his college degree, his financial situation became bleak. He was struggling to such an extent that he had to take up additional work at an emergency accommodation centre.
“I was doing 90-hour weeks,“ he said. ”I was doing maybe 37.5 hours in the hospital, unpaid as supernumerary.
“And then working the rest on very extended shifts, night shifts. Oftentimes, [I was] finishing student placement shifts and going to do a night shift.”
O’Dwyer points to the first three years of nursing and midwifery placements being unpaid. This can lead to financial difficulties, he says. In the fourth year, individuals are entitled to 80 per cent of a graduated nurse’s salary.
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During those first three years, students can access supports of up to €300 per week while on clinical placements for accommodation costs.
But O’Dwyer said he is aware of fellow students who lived in cars during placements because the funding allocated to them wasn’t enough to cover accommodation.
He said: “When we start our placements, we’re not starting as wallflowers. On my first shift as a first-year student, I was told ‘here’s a basin, here’s some washcloths – go to patient one, two and three’." He called for salaries to be made available to students at an earlier stage.
Rebecca Brennan, a final-year nursing student at Dundalk IT, said the cost of diesel is particularly challenging for her at the moment.
“I come from Cavan, I was travelling to Drogheda on my internship,” she said. “I was spending maybe over €100 a week in diesel and that wasn’t even bringing the car to three-quarters full.
“In the last month alone, I’ve done 3,500km of driving. Obviously being student nurses, we make 80 per cent of what a new graduate makes, which is great, but it really just doesn’t go far enough.”
Student nurses aren’t alone in feeling the pinch from the cost-of-living crisis.
Two emergency motions on the topic were passed at the annual Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) conference in Dundalk on Thursday.
In one motion, proposed by public health nurse Liz Balfe, the conference called on the INMO to “urgently engage” with the HSE and policy makers to “immediately upwardly adjust the mileage and subsistence rates paid to nurses and midwives who utilise their private cars in the provision of services to the public”.
The motion states: “It is not appropriate nor fair that nurses and midwives must provide services on behalf of the HSE utilising their own private vehicles at a significant financial cost to themselves.”
Balfe said nurses cannot afford to use their cars anymore and the situation is “totally unacceptable in 2026”.
A community-registered general nurse based in Sligo said her working costs were becoming unsustainable. This was largely based on the financial outlay involved in running a car to care for patients. At weekends, she can drive up to 200km a day.
Another delegate said the situation is impinging on patient care: “We can no longer provide the clinical care to our clients and elderly patients . . . without our mileage being upwardly adjusted. We are not a charity.”
The second motion, from the union’s executive council, noted the cost-of-living crisis is placing “nurses, midwives and their families under increasing financial pressure”.
The motion outlined the measures being sought. This included supports – in light of the fuel crisis – for healthcare workers required to use their own transport to provide services.
It also called for the implementation of a local bargaining clause, worth one per cent of the pay bill, as well as a deal relating to manager grades.
Delegates mandated the executive council to “consider all options up to and including industrial action”, if progress on these issues is delayed.
