THE smoking ban laws will be put to their first serious test today after health authorities moved decisively last night to quash the revolt by publicans.

New hospital wards are being built across the country, only to stay idle because of a lack of funding to staff them, writes Paul O'Brien.

UNDERSPENDING health board bosses were accused yesterday of passing the blame on to the Department of Health for their failure to manage finances properly.

HOSPITALS guilty of bad management and delaying the discharge of patients have been hit with fines totalling €4.4 million.

TERMINALLY-ill patients in Galway still have to travel to other counties, while beds in the local hospice remain empty.

TERMINALLY-ILL cancer patients in Galway are being forced to travel to Cork and Dublin for care because a local hospice has refused to take new clients following an alleged drugs mix-up.

IT was the bee’s knees when it first opened and it even won a few awards for its architect, Roddy Hogan, who also lives there himself.

EIGHT prominent health board members, who are publicans, have criticised the Government’s smoking ban and called for a compromise deal.

The head of the Western Health Board resigned tonight in protest against Government plans to outlaw smoking in the workplace.

HEALTH care facilities worth up to €150 million are lying idle around the country because of government funding shortages.

A PUBLICAN who heads a health board denies there is a conflict of interest in calling for the gradual phasing-in of a blanket ban on smoking.

DOZENS of patients were left waiting on trolleys with more being treated in a makeshift fashion in the waiting room of University Hospital Galway yesterday.

A €12.7 MILLION radiotherapy unit cannot open to cancer patients because a shortfall in funding means it cannot be staffed.

PARENTS outraged by the Western Health Board’s (WHB) plan to end a homebirth scheme are demanding its retention and expansion.

The Labour Relations Commission is to intervene in the dispute over plans to lay-off 169 Western Health Board workers in order to make savings of €1.15m.

A total of 31 people are spending their last day working for the Western Health Board.

The Western Health Board has apparently deferred plans to lay off 169 workers as part of cutbacks ordered by the Government.

An interim agreement has been reached in talks between SIPTU and the Western Health Board.

SIPTU is to ask the Western Health Board to reduce the expenses it pays to politicians sitting on the board in an effort to avert planned redundancies.

SIPTU and the Western Health Board are due to hold talks today over the board’s plans to lay off 169 workers as part of a round of Government cutbacks.

HOSPITAL patients in the west are facing major disruption from next Monday, with nurses and ward clerks mounting industrial action in a row over pay and planned job losses.

IMPACT and the Western Health Board are due to continue talks today on the board’s plans to lay off 169 workers to meet a Government savings target.

TALKS are to resume on Tuesday between the Western Health Board and the IMPACT trade union in a bid to save 169 jobs in the region.

IMPACT and the Western Health Board are to meet again next Tuesday to discuss the Board’s plans to lay off 169 of its workers.

IMPACT has reiterated its opposition to Western Health Board’s plans to lay off 169 workers.

WORKERS have been instructed not to cover any axed posts ahead of crisis talks tomorrow over Western Health Board plans to shelve 169 jobs to comply with Government orders to save €1.15 million.

The Western Health Board clashed again with the Department of Health and health service unions yesterday after details emerged of the scope of the planned lay-offs.

The Department of Health has asked the Western Health board for clarification on the 169 posts to be axed there.

MOST independent observers now predict that the Government will end up with a deficit at the end of the current year, because tax returns are running well below the budget predictions, while government spending is running ahead of projections. The ESRI is predicting that the deficit will be in the region of €900m.

The IMPACT trade union has called on Health Minister Micheal Martin to rethink his plans to implement spending and job cuts in the health services.

SIPTU has vowed to strongly resist any plans to cut jobs in the Western Health Board.

Trade Unions and the Western Health board are meeting this morning to discuss 200 job cuts of clerical workers in the region.

THE 200 job cuts in the health services in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, covered by the Western Health Board, are still on the cards.

The Department of Health and the Western Health Board have begun talks about a controversial round of job cuts announced earlier this month.

A showdown between the Western Health board and the Department of Health is expected later today on the issue of job cuts.

JOB cuts in Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary were discussed by senior management in the Mid-Western Health Board yesterday.

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin is deluding himself when he chooses to dress up health cutbacks as harmless budgetary adjustments which will not hurt services, Fine Gael said last night.

THE public should be uneasy about what is happening in the Department of Health when the Minister himself, Micheál Martin, does not seem to know what is going on in the midst of the savage cuts he has instituted in recent days.

LIVES will be put at risk by the impending cutbacks in the health service, a top hospital consultant warned yesterday.