About 150 student nurses staged a protest in Galway yesterday to highlight the fact that they are the only undergraduates in the State who still have to pay fees.
Up to 40 of them refused to pay their fees when they were due to register for the nursing degree course at NUI Galway, prior to their march from University College Hospital to County Hall.
Although fees were abolished for undergraduates in 1997, the student nurses were due to pay £2,317 each when they registered yesterday. They had completed their diploma courses last Friday.
Mr Colm Keaveney, a SIPTU assistant secretary, said: "We need an immediate response, because the students have been told that if they don't pay they will not be able to receive degrees."
The full-time degree course was introduced by NUI Galway in 1998 and since then, 117 students have paid the fees to the university.
Mr Keaveney said the fees had placed a significant burden on the students.
Mr Paddy Jordan, the president of NUI Galway Students' Union, said it was a clear case of inequality: "In a time when the Government should be attracting school-leavers to the nursing profession to make up for the shortage, they are doing the exact opposite".