If you are a parent of one of the 30,000 girls who will be offered the vaccine in September, you are right to inform yourself, but do so from trusted scientific sources, writes Alison O’Connor.

The row over the site for the country's new National Childrens' Hospital has taken a new turn.

The three main tobacco groups in Ireland have claimed legislation proposed by Health Minister James Reilly to ban all branding on cigarettes will have no impact on smoking levels and will only increase the trade in illegal cigarettes.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has dismissed claims from a senior Vatican official that politicians should resign rather than support Ireland’s abortion laws.

The Oireachtas Committee on Health, chaired by Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer, has begun compiling a report on its hearings on the heads of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

Draft new laws on abortion will be published this evening after an hour of crunch talks in Cabinet.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny says he is 'hopeful' that planned abortion legislation will be ready by July.

The Oireachtas Committee on Health will not make any specific recommendations to Minister James Reilly on abortion legislation.

Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty has said she is 95% ready to give her support to legislation on abortion.

Health officials will not outline what options they are considering to allow for abortion in limited circumstances when they appear before an Oireachtas committee today.

The Oireachtas Committee on Health will begin hearing the views of a number of groups on abortion this week.

A row has erupted over a series of hearings on abortion legislation to be held by the Oireachtas next week.

By calling on the Government to target attitudes towards alcohol and sex in this country, the Rape Crisis Network effectively seizes the moral high ground today — International Human Rights Day — by highlighting a specific issue where action is urgently needed.

The HSE’s latest performance report has admitted an additional €130m of “cost and cash measures” will be needed over the next three months if it is to break even by year’s end.

Consultants will be named and shamed for failing to sign off on treatment forms that are delaying €60m in reimbursed payments from health insurance companies.

Tony O’Brien, who led a special unit charged with reducing hospital trolley numbers and waiting lists over the past year, is the new head of the HSE.

In Greek mythology Icarus attempted to escape from Crete using wings made of feathers and wax fashioned by his father, a master craftsman and innovator.

The HSE has given a commitment to hold a consultation process with any nursing homes that are being considered for closure.

The Minister for Health James Reilly is due before an Oireachtas Committee on Health today, where he will be questioned about the state of the country's health and social care services.

HSE Chief Executive Cathal Magee as confirmed that some community nursing units may face closure once a review of all facilities is complete.

Health Minister James Reilly has insisted there will be no hospital closures in the Budget.

SUPERMARKETS cannot accept money from the alcohol trade without accepting the responsibility for the heartbreak cheap alcohol brings.

THE alcohol industry is spending huge amounts of money to “normalise” a potentially “very dangerous product, Roisín Shortall said.

THE Government should sue tobacco companies to recoup the costs of healthcare for smokers, a Labour MEP has said.

FINE GAEL has said urgent legislation is needed to ensure no new drugs could be sold in head shops without the approval of food or medicine authorities.

A GROUP representing families affected by the organ retention scandal has rejected an official statement that its funding was cut off because of accounting irregularities.

THE Oireachtas Committee on Health will be writing to the head of the Health Services Executive (HSE), Professor Brendan Drumm, asking him to explain apparent delays in appointing four consultant neurologists.

THE head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday acknowledged that the conditions that patients and staff had to contend with were not acceptable in as many as 15 of the country’s 35 A&E wards.

THE consistent decline in tuberculosis (TB) rates in Ireland over the past 50 years may be somewhat reversed by the increase of immigration into Ireland, leading experts in the area said yesterday.

IRISH infertility experts are hoping that a legal battle over the custody of human embryos will also clarify where Constitutional protection to the unborn begins.

FIANNA FÁIL’S parliamentary party bravado in the face of the aborted café society plan showed a refreshing change from the normal sheepish pursuit of the party line, sometimes against the best interests of their constituents.

IT is regrettable that the report by the Oireachtas Committee on Health on illegal charges imposed on residents in nursing homes was clouded in controversy even before it was published yesterday.

There were extraordinary scenes at today's press conference for the publication of the Oireachtas Committee on Health report into the Travers inquiry on nursing home charges.

JUSTICE MINISTER Michael McDowell’s plan to introduce café bar licences is set to trigger the biggest backbench revolt in eight years of coalition government.

THE consultant who investigated the Department of Health’s handling of nursing home charges yesterday said that a crucial briefing paper prepared for then Minister Micheál Martin was not conclusive on the illegality of the charges.

LOBBYISTS campaigning against the downgrading of small hospitals claim there are community groups around the country ready to mobilise at a moment’s notice to oppose the implementation of the Hanly reform of the health service.

FORMER Health Minister Micheál Martin is to be called before the Oireachtas Committee on Health next month to discuss the Travers Report.

THE Government spends six times less on suicide prevention than it does on road safety campaigns even though more people die as a result of suicide each year, it emerged yesterday.

HEALTH MINISTER Michéal Martin denied yesterday that he was in dispute with Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, despite an apparent sideswipe by the Mr McCreevy at certain Cabinet colleagues.

IRISH people with motor neurone disease are dying sooner than those in other countries because of inadequate health services.

DO you know what a rainbow is? Do you know that girls have been treated in the Sexual Assault Unit in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin with the amount of alcohol in their systems that is normally found in the morgue?

The VHI will come under pressure today to freeze its prices while a value-for-money audit is carried out.

Fine Gael has repeated its calls to the Government to freeze the recommended 9% increase granted to the VHI.