The National Women’s Council of Ireland is calling for the urgent introduction of safety zone legislation ahead of a planned 40-day prayer vigil outside the National Maternity Hospital by campaigners opposed to abortion.

Four consultant obstetricians at St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, among them an anti-abortion campaigner, have written to GPs in the region to advise that termination services are not available in the hospital.

The former master of the Coombe has called on the Sisters of Charity to voluntarily hand over the land where the new national maternity hospital is set to be built to the Government in a bid to end the controversy over the site.

Last Sunday, shortly after lunchtime, Peter Boylan, the eminent ex-master of the National Maternity Hospital at Holles St, picked up his phone to send a text.

THE women of Ireland need to take part in a reproductive action, and by action I mean a stoppage. 

A coroner has bowed to pressure and offered to almost treble the number of witnesses for an inquest into the death of a woman who died days after giving birth.

While the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) is at the centre of the top-ups controversy, it is just one of 13 voluntary hospitals and agencies paying bosses extra salaries from “privately funded” sources.

The HSE will claw back funds from any hospital or health agency which continues to flout a ban on top-up payments to senior officials.

Senior voluntary hospital and agency bosses are receiving “at least €3.224m” per year in 36 hidden extra fees on top of their six-figure salaries.

Hospitals which refuse to carry out abortions to save women’s lives because of their religious ethos could face the withdrawal of State funding, the health minister has warned.

Premature babies born at a maternity hospital were put at needless “clinical risk” because of serious building problems linked to a delayed upgrade of the facility.

Hospitals with a Catholic ethos have been told they must abide by the law of the land, as ministers hit back at claims that proposed abortion legislation amountedto a denial of religious freedom.

FROM the home to the workplace to the altar the national financial crisis is affecting every facet of life and infertility is no exception.

ROUTINE vaccination of newborns to protect against TB has been suspended at two of the country’s largest maternity hospitals on foot of a Europe-wide shortage of the BCG vaccine.

THE Irish Nurses Organisation is investigating claims that 17 overseas nurses were threatened with repatriation unless they signed contracts which would have resulted in loss of earnings of up to €26,000 each.