The announcement yesterday of a £75 increase in the annual grant payable to student nurses did nothing to appease the anger of degree-year students who have been protesting that they are the only full-time undergraduate students in the State having to pay college fees.
The increase was announced by the Minister of State for Health, Mr Frank Fahey, at the announcement in Dublin of this year's nurse recruitment competition.
The Minister said that while he sympathised with student nurses it was made clear from the outset that fees would not be paid for those undertaking the degree programme. Degree students have to pay tuition fees of £2,317.
"The problem is that the National University of Ireland, Galway, decided to do a full-time degree course against the Department's advice which was do to a part-time course and therefore enable people to have the flexibility to work because they are registered nurses," he said.
The Psychiatric Nurses' Association of Ireland rejected the explanation and called for an immediate end to the "blatant discrimination" against student nurses.
"The level of negativity and tight-fistedness surrounding the whole degree programme has done serious damage to nursing," the association's industrial relations officer, Mr Seamus Murphy, said.