Hundreds of thousands of nurses have still not received the €1,000 pandemic bonus five months on after it was announced by the Government.
New figures show that at the start of this week only 13,000 of the more than 100,000 HSE workers entitled to the bonus have received it.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said the payment needs to be paid “very quickly.”
Read More: Stephen Donnelly seeks 'immediate' payment of Covid pandemic bonus to frontline healthcare workers
He blamed engagement between representative bodies over the delayed payments.
He said: “The recognition payment needs to be paid very quickly.
“Part of the reason it has taken this long is because the Department and the HSE have been engaging with the representative bodies, listening very carefully to what they want.
“What happened after the Government decision is there was quite an intensive period of discussions between the HSE, the Department and the representative bodies.
“I’m advised several thousand have been paid but there’s many, many more thousand and I fully agree with the representative bodies and the department is working with the HSE to expedite it, particularly where it’s easiest, which is our own direct employees.
“It is more complex when we’re passing money on to third party providers because we have to ensure that money is allocated in the right way.”
The Government announced plans for a special tax-free €1,000 Covid-19 pandemic bonus payment earlier this year and the money was due to be paid before June last year.
The new figures obtained by RTE now show just one in eight health service workers eligible for the €1,000 payment have received it.
Minister Donnelly added: “No one should feel demoralised.
“What this is, is a genuine recognition by the Government and indeed by the people of Ireland of how extraordinary our healthcare workers have been.”
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