Tributes have been paid to the generations of volunteers and fundraisers who have supported the Marymount Hospice in Cork as it embarked on its 150th anniversary celebrations today.

The Religious Sisters of Charity says it is confident of a “positive outcome” on the legal transfer of its land shares for the building of the new National Maternity Hospital.

Despite the uncertainty, the centre's care assistants, social care workers and administration and clerical workers, are still turning up for work every day to care for the centre residents.

The National Maternity Hospital is building a multimillion-euro extension, despite preparations to move it to a new location

Planning permission has been granted to build the new National Maternity Hospital on the campus of St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin.

Health Minister Simon Harris has attempted to avoid a repeat of the national maternity hospital fiasco by insisting a new national children’s hospital will be “secular” and completely devoid of any religious control.

A record 13,500 people received assistance from the homeless charity Focus Ireland last year.

The health watchdog is considering cancelling the registration of a home run by the Cork Association for Autism (CAA) because of concerns regarding the quality and safety of the service.

There is a warning that the new National Maternity Hospital still will not have clinical independence.

THE announcement that the Sisters of Charity will not be involved in a new national maternity hospital must have been a bitter pill to swallow for the order, the Catholic hierarchy and the wider tradition of Irish Catholicism. 

Here's what you need to know.

The separation of Church and State is easier to advocate than practise, as the National Maternity Hospital controversy shows, says TP O’Mahony

Health Minister Simon Harris is due to meet the boards of St Vincent’s Hospital and Holles Street over the national maternity hospital standoff this week amid ongoing public anger over the location of the facility.

The Health Minister Simon Harris says he hopes that talks on the ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital can be substantially completed by the end of the month.

Minister for Disability Finian McGrath has refused to say if ownership of the National Maternity Hospital is a red-line issue for the Independent Alliance.

Latest: The Government chief whip says some of the comments surrounding the new national maternity hospital are very "misleading".

The Government is considering a long-term lease, with a nominal rent, for the site of the proposed new National Maternity Hospital.

Anyone familiar with the ongoing debacle over the National Maternity Hospital might be forgiven for thinking that the Sisters of Charity is an enclosed religious order whose members take not only vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but also a vow of silence.

A national march has been organised in protest against the “religious ownership” of the new National Maternity Hospital.

LATEST:A Government TD has broken ranks to call on Health Minister Simon Harris to consider buying the €300m land on which the new National Maternity Hospital will be built in a bid to end the escalating scandal.

The problem is we all know the Church plays a very long game, and sticks, religiously, to its beliefs, writes Alison O’Connor

The board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group has reiterated its backing for the relocation of the National Maternity Hospital to its grounds and insisted it “will continue to serve the people of Ireland by providing world class medical facilities and standards of care”.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has supported Health Minister Simon Harris in his call for “breathing space” to resolve the new national maternity hospital crisis, saying talks are needed to put in place a “legally waterproof situation”.

The former master of the Coombe has called on the Sisters of Charity to voluntarily hand over the land where the new national maternity hospital is set to be built to the Government in a bid to end the controversy over the site.

Plans for a new maternity hospital are back on track after the board of Holles Street overwhelmingly voted in favour of re-endorsing the deal struck last November that paved the way for its transfer to the campus of St Vincent’s University Hospital at Elm Park.

Last Sunday, shortly after lunchtime, Peter Boylan, the eminent ex-master of the National Maternity Hospital at Holles St, picked up his phone to send a text.

On the basic issues of property and profiteering, it seems the Sisters are doing some good, writes Gerard Howlin. 

Health Minister Simon Harris is seeking a one-month national maternity hospital reprieve in a bid to rescue the crisis-hit project from the brink of collapse.

Latest: The deal to move Holles Street Hospital to St Vincent's in Dublin has been published.

Health Minister Simon Harris is keen to begin a review of the ownership and patronage of dozens of hospitals across the country as he feels it is time to settle the wider issue of the Church-State relationship, senior government sources have said.

In some ways, the controversy over the ownership of the new maternity hospital is the most bizarre I’ve ever come across. And the reason is simple. We don’t know enough about it to make a judgement. In fact, we don’t know anything.

Health Minister Simon Harris is keen to begin a review of the ownership and patronage of dozens of hospitals across the country as he feels it is time to settle the wider issue of the Church-State relationship, senior government sources have said.

Societies are judged by many criteria. Some regard gross domestic product as defining.

GP, Columnist and broadcaster Dr Ciara Kelly gave her opinion on a number of topical issues on The Late Late Show last night, including the current storm surrounding the National Maternity Hospital.

OVER the last number of days public debate has been animated by the prospect that the Sisters of Charity might be involved in the new National Maternity Hospital.

It’s just over three years since Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan resigned. It’s not quite three years since Justice Minister Alan Shatter quit cabinet.

Money owed by the Sisters of Charity to the redress scheme did not feature in discussions to move the National Maternity Hospital to the St Vincent’s Hospital campus, it has emerged.

The State’s investment in the proposed €300m national maternity hospital will be protected and it will be free of religious interference, according to Health Minister Simon Harris.

Latest: Dr Rhona Mahony, Master of the National Maternity Hospital, has released a statement.

A district court judge yesterday gave parties concerned with the running of a residential home for 39 vulnerable people in Cork 24 hours to come up with a plan for its future.

A religious order that ran two Magdalene Laundries told the Government that its decision not to contribute any money to the redress scheme for survivors was based on the findings of the McAleese Report.

The Government, seeking redress for the Magdalene women, found a religious community unwilling to contribute, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

The row between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital over their co-location plans has deepened after a top obstetrician said the latter’s insistence on giving its Catholic-ethos board control over its new neighbour made no sense.

Former priest and serial abuser Tony Walsh has received a sentence of one year imprisonment for the sexual assault of a child in the early 1970s.