Hospital emergency departments will be thrown into chaos next month when nurses strike to end overcrowding.

As a mother kissed her newborn baby in St Munchin’s Regional Maternity Hospital in Limerick, she was told her daughter was dying in her arms, an inquest heard.

The lack of a signed written contract for a management consultant who was paid €700 a day including expenses for almost two years for work at the University of Limerick Hospitals’ Group (ULG) has been described as “mind boggling”.