Two previously unpublished reports into the ‘Grace’ foster abuse sex scandal will be published early next week, Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath confirmed yesterday.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has announced Senator Jerry Buttimer as the leader of the Seanad.

Siptu ambulance staff are to ballot for strike action over, what their union says, is the continued refusal of Health Minister Leo Varadkar to publish a national capacity review of the service.

Reports that Mount Carmel Hospital in Dublin may be bought by RAS Medical were welcomed by members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health.

The Medical Council has defended its record in relation to a group of Asian doctors who have accused it of “unlawful treatment”.

THERE has been a failure to communicate with people on the benefits of reconfiguring hospital services and to understand people’s fear of change, a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health has heard.

IN his column on the Department of Health and Children (July 6), Fergus Finlay knocks great fun out of questioning the role and function of the department and its ministers.

OPPOSITION parties staged a walkout of an Oireachtas committee yesterday in protest at the Government’s lack of progress in introducing legislation to regulate IVF treatment.

AN offer by Ben Dunne and several businessmen to buy portakabins and equipment for overcrowded A&Es has been turned down by the Health Service Executive (HSE) on health and safety grounds.

NO final decision has yet been made on how the health boards will be divided into four new regional authorities as a fundamental part of reform of the country’s health services, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.

TREATMENT for mentally-ill patients is “in a deplorable state” because of inadequate funding, the Irish College of Psychiatrists (ICP) said yesterday.

THE Government has been warned it could face hefty fines from the EU if it fails to implement the controversial recommendations of the Hanly report to reform the health services.

THE Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) has urged the Minister for Health to establish an expert group to examine obesity levels.