A former care assistant at a Limerick facility for the elderly has been awarded €15,000 for unfair dismis sal after an Employment Appeals Tribunal found there was insufficient evidence that she had struck two residents there.

Pre-tax profits at the country’s largest nursing home group, where two indebted Nama developers transferred ownership of the firm to their wives, increased by 58% in 2011 to €2.5m.

It comes with the kind of mod-cons most would associate more with a family home than a community nursing unit, but then innovation is the byword for Cork’s newest residential care facility.