Risks still remain at the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise, according to a review by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).

Leo Varadkar, the health minister, says there are no plans to close any of the 19 maternity units across the country.

A baby’s death has resulted in “extremely helpful” recommendations, a hospital chief said yesterday.

A mother has spoken of how proud she is of her dead son — he has played a vital role in ensuring other babies did not die at birth.

A man believed to be in his early 40s is in a serious condition in Portlaoise Hospital after the car he was driving plunged into a canal near Athy, Co Kildare.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has told Laois GPs the report on Portlaoise Hospital by the State’s health services watchdog must be fully implemented.

Every hospital in the State should have a formal system for auditing pregnancy outcomes, a HSE-established review recommends.

The culture of secrecy was a handy tool in power centres when this was a poor, underdeveloped state, writes Michael Clifford.

The HSE is only acting now to ensure that complex surgery no longer takes place at the Midland Regional Hospital, despite saying years ago that surgical services at the hospital should cease, it has emerged.

Nurses say they are concerned about the transfer of some services from Portlaoise Hospital to other facilities.

Senior HSE staff in charge of patient safety were told yesterday to reflect very seriously on their “appalling” track record.

With faith in the health service at “dangerously low” levels, the HSE director general, Tony O’Brien, must go, said Renua Ireland leader Lucinda Creighton.

The purpose and structure of an external review of how red flags in relation to baby deaths at Portlaoise Hospital were not passed up the HSE’s chain of command will be known within the next two weeks.

A consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology who was placed on administrative leave more than a year ago following the death of a newborn at Cavan General Hospital has still not returned to work.

The father of a newborn boy who died at Portlaoise Hospital three years ago has called on Health Minister Leo Varadkar to order a public inquiry into infant deaths at the hospital.

“Numerous” cases “as sad and as serious” as the Portlaoise Hospital baby deaths scandal are occurring at “other sites around the country”, previously unseen HSE correspondence has claimed.

The HSE has been accused of ignoring “more than a decade” of serious patient safety concerns flagged by staff, patients, and official reports, culminating in the deaths of eight newborn babies in “extremely traumatising” circumstances.

HSE chief Tony O’Brien has refused to be drawn on whether people would be held to account following the publication of the report on child deaths in the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.

The hospital at the centre of the centre of a damning investigation into avoidable deaths of newborn babies may see its services cut or significantly downgraded in light of the life-threatening care standards revelations.

An independent patient advocacy group must be set up within a year to ensure that report recommendations are implemented because the HSE can no longer be trusted to introduce the reforms.

THE Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) report on Portlaoise Hospital that found that managers at all levels in the HSE — local, regional, and national — were aware of patient safety risks at the hospital but failed to act on them is not unexpected.

Latest revelations about patient safety at Portlaoise Hospital raise serious questions for the Government, according to Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher.

A midwife with concerns over a pregnant woman’s scan told a junior doctor to liaise with his consultant and told him she could not stand by his decision to discharge her, an inquest has heard.

The HSE says a panel of more than 30 midwives has been created at Portlaoise Hospital, after a review of staffing arrangements.

The head of the INMO, Liam Doran, has described the midwife to patient ratio at Portlaoise Hospital as "immoral".

The Health watchdog is to investigate the patient safety culture at Portlaoise Hospital and examine whether the HSE's governance structure is supporting services at the hospital or not.

A Government report into the needless deaths of newborn babies at Portlaoise Hospital has been described as “reeking of whitewash” by a leading senator and doctor.

The maternity unit in Portlaoise Hospital is the most understaffed unit in the country, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

NOBODY says it better than Terry Prone.

The parents of one of the babies who died at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise said it was unfortunate it had taken so long for action to be taken.

Staff behaviour at the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise fell well short of what would be reasonable from a patient safety point of view, according to the Department of Health’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan.

The families of four babies who died in one hospital in similar circumstances over several years suffered poor and appalling treatment by health chiefs.

The HSE has refused a request by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation to carry out an external review into the high absenteeism rates at Ennis General Hospital.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has denied any plan to downgrade Portlaoise Hospital.

The family of a woman who died from cancer who claimed that she was wrongly diagnosed at two hospitals in the Midlands as suffering from depression have settled their High Court action against the HSE for €65,000.

Lawyers for two brothers on trial for murdering a farmer, have told the jury that it is unreasonable that they should be asked by the prosecution to consider that a man “over a stray heifer turned into a killer or became involved in a plot to kill or cause serious harm”.

GANG bosses in the country’s only prison with a fully operational mobile phone blocking system are smuggling in Skype internet phones and satellite phones to bypass the technology.

A 56-year-old mother of four was today cleared of her husband's murder by reason of diminished responsibility, following just 30 minutes of deliberations by the jury.

ALMOST three years since the crackdown on mobile phones in prisons began, record numbers are being seized.

A Garda witness has told the jury in the murder trial of two brothers that one of the accused men told him the deceased had insulted his daughter, who has Down's Syndrome, prior to the alleged assault.

A Detective Garda has reiterated his evidence in the case of a two brothers accused of murdering a Co Offaly farmer, telling the Central Criminal Court he heard one of the accused say: "I hit him, you can arrest and charge me," when he arrived at the scene.

Two brothers have gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court accused of murdering a Co Offaly farmer two years ago.