Cork nurses 'will struggle' with no extension to long covid pay scheme

There will be no extension of the special pay scheme for healthcare workers suffering from long covid, the health minister has said.

Two Cork nurses have told The Echo that they will struggle to pay their mortgages if the scheme is stopped as planned.

The healthcare workers, who contracted covid while working during the pandemic recently told The Echo they were hoping for a ‘Christmas miracle’.

Ireland and Greece are the only two EU countries who do not recognise long covid contracted during work as an occupational injury, and instead staff have been on a special pay scheme which has been extended several times. However, it is due to end on December 31 this year.

The Oireachtas Health Committee wrote to the minister for health to ask her to extend the long covid scheme for healthcare workers for six months while the issue of occupational injury was examined.

Chair of the committee and Cork Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice said: 

“Last week, the Taoiseach said a resolution had to be found. Instead, all these workers have gotten is a cold-hearted response from the Government on Christmas week.”

Minister for health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, said in her response: “The scheme has already been extended several times. The Labour Court recommended a final extension in June 2025, which means the scheme will now run until December 31, 2025.

“The Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation have been clear that there will be no further extension to the scheme.”

She said that staff who remain unfit to return to work will move seamlessly into the Public Service Sick Leave Scheme, under which they will receive full pay for three months, followed by half-pay for three months.

She added that they also have the option to apply for Temporary Rehabilitative Remuneration for up to 547 days, and that there will be “reasonable accommodations to assist staff returning to work, including modified duties or adjusted work patterns while rehabilitating”.

Mr Rice’s party colleague in East Cork, Liam Quaide, described the response as “callous and emotionally detached”.

He said it was: “A disgraceful and miserly abdication of responsibility for these workers, many of whom were like cannon fodder in the terrible aftermath of the ‘Meaningful Christmas’ that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael instigated in 2020/2021 after ignoring NPHET advice on the need to maintain restrictions of movement.”