PRESS RELEASE,  Wednesday, January 16, 2013

-    Boycott is working as number of applications is minimal
    
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has been informed, via RTE, that the HSE has extended the deadline for applications, for the flawed ‘cut price’ nurse graduate programme, by two weeks, and has now opened it to graduates from 2010 and 2011.

RTE also said that they had been informed that the number of applications to date has been minimal.

In responding to this development the INMO wishes to make the following points:

1.    The decision to extend the application date, and open up the eligibility criteria, confirms that the call for a boycott of this flawed programme is being followed by new graduates. This boycott call will remain in place for whatever application period the HSE lays down;

2.    The HSE decision also confirms that this was never an educational programme, nor an opportunity to consolidate learning, but was always an overt attempt to introduce cut price, yellow pack nursing posts into our health service;

3.    This most recent development, which only widens and deepens the insult to, and attack upon, the nursing and midwifery professions will be raised again when the Croke Park extension talks reconvene in the morning.

The INMO will issue a further statement on this matter tomorrow.  In the interim, we reaffirm our call upon all new graduates, unanimously endorsed at the recent rally held in Croke Park, to continue to boycott this initiative until the HSE treats nurses and midwives with respect and commences meaningful discussions.

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