A four-year-old boy who has been left profoundly brain damaged after an operation at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, yesterday launched a High Court action for damages.

A 13-year-old boy has drowned following an incident in a river near Maynooth yesterday afternoon.

A woman left paralysed after undergoing surgery on her spine at a Dublin hospital six years ago yesterday received an apology in the High Court.

Clerical sex abuse survivor and papal representative Marie Collins said she was glad there would be an inquiry over the failure by the gardaí to act on information it had in 1973, about paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

There is no better testament to the Easter Rising than to begin building the new national children’s hospital next year on one of its most famous battle sites, the South Dublin Union, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said yesterday.

A 15-year-old has died and four other teenagers are in hospital following a crash in Dublin last night.

More than 530 children are stuck on waiting lists for orthopaedic surgery, some of whom need urgent treatment for spinal curvature, a scenario described as "unacceptably dangerous" by a leading paediatric surgeon.

Little Niamh Harkin was diagnosed with what most of us know as "clicky hips" at the age of six months.

More than 100 children with a potentially lifelong crippling condition are waiting in excess of two years to see a specialist at the only public hospital in the country to provide the service that they need.

Classmates of six-year-old Sean Scully, who was shot on Friday night, are to receive counselling at school today.

Weighed down with all his gear, Alex O’Shea blazed a trail into the book of Guinness World Records, shaving a massive 58 minutes off the record for running a marathon in full firefighting apparel.

Families with children who have severe health problems are to picket the Dáil "indefinitely" until laws are re-written to give them an automatic right to medical card help.

The HSE has launched a specific review into claims one of the country’s most high-profile doctors is allegedly receiving almost €100,000 in top-up fees a year.

The Health and Safety Authority has launched an investigation after 25 children were exposed to potentially dangerous chemicals at a university swimming pool.

Health Minister James Reilly’s pledge to end year- long hospital appointment waits by the end of 2013 looks set to fail, after new figures revealed thousands of seriously ill children are still facing the mammoth delays.

While the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) is at the centre of the top-ups controversy, it is just one of 13 voluntary hospitals and agencies paying bosses extra salaries from “privately funded” sources.

HAVE you heard about the ‘Chinese walls’ in hospitals? These walls separate tranches of money gathered for the functioning and upkeep of the hospitals, it was revealed last week.

Department of Health chiefs will attempt to recoup substantial sums of taxpayers’ money used to pay ‘top-ups’ to senior hospital and health agency bosses.

The voluntary hospitals top-up pay scandal is damaging news for both the sector and patients dependent on it.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has insisted patient safety is the Government’s absolute priority as it continues to slash costs across the health service.

A vital facility catering for some of Ireland’s most seriously ill children has been dragged into the 21st century after big-hearted private donors stepped in to fill a Government funding hole.

Five days after they told the mother of a seriously disabled child who lives with chronic pain that she wasn’t entitled to a medical card, the HSE has admitted to making an “administrative error” as they lost the eight-year-old’s medical records.

Eight-year-old Eirin Nolan O’Connor is profoundly disabled and in constant chronic pain, needing up to 45 syringes and 18 boxes of medication a day — yet the HSE believes she doesn’t deserve a medical card.

A family murdered in a suspected revenge attack may have been the victims of mistaken identity, a neighbour has said.

Rose of Tralee visitors are set to give thousands of euro today in honour of a cancer sufferer whose fight touched the hearts of the nation.

A clinic treating children for orthopaedic conditions such as congenital hip dysplasia (dislocation) and club foot is seeing up to 70 patients a day, even though the ideal number is 24, according to the surgeon involved.

More than 16,000 chronically ill children suffering from heart, bone, and sight problems are being forced to wait up to four years for vital hospital treatment.

At least 15 children are treated in hospital every week for crushed fingers, it has emerged.

A boy who was under attack from a “monster cancer” and given only a 30% chance of survival, has beaten the odds after doctors gave him the all-clear.

The family

The equivalent of one person develops a potentially fatal hospital superbug bloodstream infection every four hours, figures revealed after a series of damning health service hygiene reports have shown.

Toddler Sergio O’Connor has just returned to Ireland after undergoing major surgery to connect his digestive system in the US.

Munster Interprovincial football manager Ger O’Sullivan is adamant his team stand a great chance of beating Ulster in Sunday’s semi-final despite four of the province’s six counties being Division 4 teams.

The number of people waiting for a first-time appointment to see a hospital consultant in an outpatient department is headed towards 400,000, including more than 12,000 people who are waiting more than four years.

Nearly one fifth of consultant posts in the country’s hospitals are vacant or being covered by locums, temporary employees, or part-time staff.

More than 40 consultants have called for the long-delayed national children’s hospital — set to be based at St James’s — to be directly linked to a leading maternity site.

A fitness to practise committee of the Irish Medical Council has expressed serious concern about surgical procedures at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin after it claimed there was “significant evidence of systems failures, weaknesses and errors” at the hospital.

A medical inquiry is expected to rule later today into allegations of poor professional performance against one the country’s leading paediatric surgeons.

Children in State care are up to five times more likely to suffer from mental health issues than their peers, a leading psychiatrist has claimed.

The family of a young boy buried in a sand dune for over 10 minutes are arranging to meet the four men who saved the 10-year-old’s life.

A young Limerick girl is undergoing heavy medical treatment after her finger was pricked by a heroin syringe, when she fell on a pile of rubbish near her home.

Pleas for Euro 2012 organisers to hold a minute’s silence in memory of tragic Irish fan James Nolan appear to have fallen on deaf ears.