LIVING quarters provided by the Defence Forces for serving members are under-used and sometimes abused, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report has found.

THE need for an out-of-hours child protection service was highlighted in the south east 10 years ago in a child care report.

A SENIOR health manager who was leading a probe into the unexpected death of a woman at a nursing home has stepped aside to avoid a potential conflict of interests.

NURSES have won the right to take two paid half-days to attend the Mary From Dungloe and Rory Gallagher festivals after taking their case to the Labour Court.

AN Irish mother-to-be suffering from a pregnancy-related illness was not entitled to be treated differently to anybody else, the European Court of Justice has ruled.

A EUROPEAN court is expected to rule this week that the North Western Health Board (NWHB) breached EU legislation by reducing a female employee’s pay because she was absent from work with a pregnancy-related illness.

AMBULANCES costing €1,200 per run are used to transport cancer patients in the north-west to Dublin for radiotherapy in the absence of nearby facilities.

THE Government has been urged to clean-up its own act by recycling more than one third of its waste.

The High Court has reportedly been asked to consider whether health authorities are acting illegally by using minors to catch retailers who sell cigarettes to under-18s.

A HIGH Court judge yesterday criticised the decision of the Medical Defence Union (MDU) to withdraw indemnity from a consultant obstetrician who is being sued for €4.14 million the amount of a settlement approved by the court a year ago in favour of a 10-year-old girl who had cerebral palsy and other health complications.

ALCOHOL abuse is leading to the sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections (STI), which are now at their highest-ever recorded level, Health Minister Mary Harney said yesterday.

CONSTRUCTION on a €9.5million building for the North Western Health Board began before formal funding for the project had been secured, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.

THE health board facing an inquiry today into its unauthorised building of a €9.5 million new headquarters denied last night that there was anything irregular about another recent property deal it undertook.

A STAGGERING 50% of children have decayed teeth by the age of 12, a new survey has found.

A consultant gynaecologist was placed on leave from Sligo General Hospital pending an investigation by the Medical Council, it emerged today.

The North Western Health Board has reportedly asked the Irish Medical Council to investigate the practice of a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist based at Sligo General Hospital.

WHAT’S going on at the North Western Health Board? That’s the €9.5 million question following today’s revelation that this princely sum was poured into new headquarters without permission.

REGIONS outside greater Dublin are at the early stages of a cocaine epidemic, a health expert warned yesterday.

A Northern Ireland Office minister was today urged to help speed up a decision on whether a cross-border dental and facial treatment service will be given the go-ahead in the North.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today announced details of five closure orders served by Environmental Health Officers (EHO) due to breaches of food safety legislation.

WE are still living in a country with a Tír na n-Óg attitude to time, at least in a legal context. Why else would one of the most evil men who was ever forced into an Irish courtroom serve just nine years of the 238 years he earned for his horrific crimes?

IN 1995 he was sentenced to 238 years imprisonment, the longest sentence in Irish legal history, today he walks free.

A FRESH outbreak of the winter vomiting virus has hit one of the largest hospitals in the north west.

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin yesterday indicated he would restore funding cut from a service for terminally ill patients, after the hospice involved threatened to refer the case to the Ombudsman.

The idea of cutting necessary funds for a hospice treating dying cancer patients is so callous that it casts serious doubts on the compassion and competence of the North Western Health Board, and also calls into question whether the Government has any sense of responsibility to the public.

A HOSPICE that had funding for a homecare service for patients cut last year has threatened to refer the Department of Health to the Ombudsman if the money is not restored.

HOSPITALS guilty of bad management and delaying the discharge of patients have been hit with fines totalling €4.4 million.

CONDEMNED by health and fire safety experts, Loch an Iúir national school in Donegal faces a huge insurance headache if essential repairs are not carried out.

EIGHT prominent health board members, who are publicans, have criticised the Government’s smoking ban and called for a compromise deal.

TWO teenage girls made a suicide pact after one of them told the other she "had lived her life and had nothing more to do", an inquest in Donegal heard yesterday.

A PSYCHIATRIC patient found dead in a river three days after he disappeared, had appeared calm and quietly read a book on the journey back to the mental health unit where he was being treated.

REFORM of health service structures will make no difference to patients unless there is more investment in the system, a top health official insisted yesterday.

A patient displaying SARS-like symptoms was tonight being treating in isolation in a Co Donegal hospital, health officials confirmed.

GENERAL Practitioners are meeting tonight to consider balloting for industrial action in support of their striking public health colleagues.

MORE than 3,340 patients have received medical treatment abroad or in private hospitals here as the Government tries to clear the backlog of people stuck on public hospital waiting lists.

HEALTH board bosses will shortly appear before the public finance watchdog to explain the €20 million medical card system blunder.

THE full scale of the scandal surrounding doctors who claimed millions of euro to provide medical cover for deceased patients was exposed yesterday.

THE tragic deaths of two children on opposite sides of the country are under garda investigation today.

A DRAMATIC increase in cancer drug and treatment costs has sent health boards’ spend on cancer services soaring in the space of three years.

MEDICAL experts have recommended children be given the MMR vaccine at an earlier age after a measles outbreak claimed three lives.

Student nurses are to protest outside the North Western Health Board tomorrow afternoon.

MAKING amends for the mistaken offer of extra places on a psychiatric nursing course by the Central Applications Office will cost the public about €300,000.