The chief executive of private facility Clane General Hospital in Co Kildare expects the hospital to return to profit this year.

There was growing pressure on the Harley Medical Group last night to agree a deal on the removal and replacement of PIP breast implants from the 1,100 women affected by the defective products.

Representatives from the PIP Action Group say they have had a "very positive" meeting with the state's Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan.

The three private hospital groups who fitted faulty breast implants in Irish women are to be hauled before the Oireachtas Health Committee to explain their response to the crisis.

The country’s Chief Medical Officer has vowed to ensure the fallout from faulty silicone breast implants affecting at least 1,500 women costs the taxpayer nothing.

Private clinics which offered PIP breast implants in Ireland “can do what they want” because they are not regulated, the country’s medicines watchdog has said.

Bitbuzz has announced an increase of 31% in the number of registered users in the first half of 2011.

THE Dublin county coroner has recorded a verdict of death by medical misadventure at an inquest into the death of a man who died the day after a routine prostate operation was performed at a private Co Kildare hospital.

“FRINGE” pro-life activists were last night blamed for threatening letters and shotgun cartridges being sent to two government ministers and at least two fertility clinics.

A DO-IT-YOURSELF fertility test for men which provides couples trying to conceive with an early warning system for potential reproductive problems will be available in Ireland from next week.