The second emergency general meeting of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association in four months was intended to indicate their concern about the crisis within the health system.

The report of Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell on the implementation of the 1997 contract of the Medical Consultants was published yesterday.

Larry Broderick, general secretary of the Irish Bank Officials’ Association, (IBOA) warned yesterday that the practice of so-called tiger kidnapping — in which members of the families of bank officials are kidnapped and held hostage — has been on the increase in recent months.

NAKED political opportunism is the charge confronting Tánaiste Michael McDowell following his declaration that the Progressive Democrats will not take part in any future Government which supports the incinerator planned for his Dublin constituency.

HOURS before the would-be government of Fine Gael and Labour set out their economic stall yesterday, the outgoing administration carried out a classic preemptive strike, claiming their promises would cost the moon and the stars.

The Government launched its National Women’s Strategy 2007-2016 yesterday.

The Central Bank, which had been forecasting that the economy would grow by 5.75% this year, has scaled back on its prediction to growth of 4.75%.

THERE’S a cynical whiff of electioneering about the timing of today’s release of the Government’s long-awaited report on a national strategy for women.

HEATED debate over gun control in the US has been rekindled by the massacre of university students in the state of Virginia.

AN election campaign without a whiff of scandal is unimaginable and, true to form, controversy has broken over the head of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, leader of the country’s biggest political party.