The HSE has acknowledged that the number of applications for its controversial new graduate scheme for nurses and midwives has been low.
Today was the deadline for receipt of submissions for positions under the programme. However, the HSE said it will continue to accept applications for the scheme – which offers payment of 80 per cent of the current rate – on a continuous rolling basis.
The HSE also said that the initiative was now open to graduates who qualified in 2010 and 2011 as well those who finished college in 2012.
The HSE said that all employment to be offered to 2013 graduates would be under the controversial new scheme. The HSE also said that nurses participating in the graduate programme would be supported to complete a certificate in advanced healthcare skills, such as health assessment and pharmacology.
Nursing unions said that their boycott of the new graduate scheme, which they have organised, was working and would continue.
The general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation Liam Doran said while the HSE had originally sought to appoint 1,000 graduates under the new scheme he believed the number of applicants was around 50 or 60.
“We have to get the HSE to come back to the table and agree a programme that will attract and retain these mobile young professionals. We need them, we want them and we are losing them at the minute because this is a flawed yellow pack programme," he said.
"We have always said that we want a graduate programme. But a graduate programme has to have equal pay for equal work. For every hour these people work they have to be paid the proper rate on the scale."
Some 350 nurses took part in a rally outside the headquarters of the HSE in Dublin this morning in protest at the new graduate programme which they argued represented exploitation as they would be paid less than existing nurses for doing the same work.
