Why are our waistlines expanding by the year? Clodagh Finn turns to health author Sarah Boseley to find out what’s wrong with the way we eat today.

THE matter of who will be our Minister for Health following the impending reshuffle should be of grave concern to all of us.

Ireland is spending less on health by percentage of GDP than France or Germany, despite the fact both nations are continuing to push for reductions in our health service budgets.

Financial control systems in the HSE are clearly in need of overhaul, Health Minister James Reilly said yesterday.

The chair of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee and Health Minister James Reilly have clashed over claims two of the system’s most senior officials should resign over repeated "Groundhog Day" failures.

One of the two health bosses called on to resign by the chair of the Public Accounts Committee has rejected claims he's done anything wrong.

Sick children who lost medical cards in a recent HSE cull are to have them reinstated within weeks, according to parents who met yesterday with the health minister.

A long-awaited Department of Health task force set up to examine chronic nursing staff shortages is welcome, but must include the "immediate" lifting of the HSE’s recruitment ban.

A senior nurse at the midlands hospital where a number of babies died in controversial circumstances has claimed the hospital was "essentially abandoned" years ago.

A woman whose medical card is under review had been hit with a bill for €850 for additional nights her premature baby spent in a special care unit, delegates attending the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation annual conference heard.

Around 8,000 additional nursing staff would need to be recruited to meet the target set by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation of one nurse for every four patients in busy hospital wards.

IT’S GETTING so it’s difficult to keep up. Since Christmas, we’ve had to work hard to keep abreast of all the unfolding scandals, while simultaneously maintaining our healthy sense of national moral indignation.

The HSE has apologised “unequivocally” for “serious shortcomings” in the deaths of four babies in six years at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.

Health chiefs are set to investigate claims by a senator that there was “a cover-up” by management at St Vincent’s Hospital over the fraudulent charging of health insurers for cancer drugs.

A “completely unacceptable” attempt by Health Minister James Reilly to access detailed files on potential primary care sites has been described as a “misunderstanding” by high-ranking officials.

If the room was filled with people who had lost their medical cards — the child with Down’s syndrome, the cancer patient or someone with motor neurone disease — they would not believe what they were hearing.

Siptu was unaware of the existence of a “slush fund” operated by one of its senior staff because its name was “misleading”.

Outspoken disability campaigner Joanne O’Riordan has accused Taoiseach Enda Kenny of again backtracking on “his personal promise to me” that disability funding would not be cut under his rule.

An Oireachtas committee has asked the Department of Health’s top civil servant to appear before it following the axing of the mobility grant, as it is “increasingly concerned at the difficulties in the relationship between the Ombudsman and the Department of Health”.

The Government must breach an ombudsman ruling that tens of thousands of disabled people are entitled to support payments because the State cannot afford the funds.

Radical legislation to ban smoking in vehicles carrying children has been approved by Health Minister James Reilly and will be enforced before the summer.

The acting head of the HSE has been overpaid more than €160,000 since 2006.

The HSE has inadvertently highlighted how it manages upcoming negative news after accidently including the Irish Examiner in a group email to senior officials.

The Government must set up an independent public inquiry, which may include strict time and budget limits to prevent a repeat of the tribunal excesses, if it wants to stop Savita Halappanavar’s death being investigated at European level.

Health Minister James Reilly, the secretary general of the Department of Health, and the head of the HSE have assured consultants at Waterford Regional Hospital it will retain key services such as cancer care, cardiology, and trauma care.

YOU may not know it but most of your life as a citizen is regulated by something called ‘the system’.

The Government’s chief whip has admitted his office contacted the Dáil’s spending watchdog to find out in advance what it wanted to ask health officials at a meeting this week.

Laois Offaly TD Sean Fleming is standing over his decision to walk out of a Public Accounts Committee meeting with Health Officials last night.

Extraordinary scenes unfolded at a meeting of the Dáil’s spending watchdog after health officials refused to spell out exactly how the HSE’s budget would be balanced by year’s end.

Officials from the Department of Health and the HSE will face questions from the Public Accounts Committee today.

The length of time patients had to wait for treatment on hospital trolleys fell by almost 20% in the first six months of the year.

The HSE’s latest performance report has admitted an additional €130m of “cost and cash measures” will be needed over the next three months if it is to break even by year’s end.

The Secretary General of the Department of Health says very difficult decisions on managing budgets and delivering services remain over the next two years.

A stand-off between hospital consultants, the Department of Health, and the HSE over work practice reforms ended yesterday after agreement was reached to enter talks at the Labour Relations Commission.

The HSE is faced with an unplanned €30m bill for providing drugs not contained in its national service plan for 2012.

IRELAND is to host a world pharmaceutical congress in 2013, worth as much as €10 million to the national economy.

Pharmacists could be struck off or prosecuted if they don't comply with new guidelines on the sale of codeine.

Pharmacists around Ireland should get the swine flu vaccine as soon as possible, the head of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), the pharmacy regulator, has said today.

NEWS that almost 4,000 patients were treated by the same consultant on the National Treatment Purchase Fund as they were on the public health service has been described as typical of the health service “duplication and expense”.

ALMOST nine out of 10 adverse incidents involving patient care in Irish hospitals are made by nurses, with just 3% being reported by doctors, a study shows.

FINGER-PRICK testing for diabetes and blood tests for cholesterol could be available at the local pharmacy if an expert group decides it is the appropriate setting for additional patient services.

A NUMBER of pharmacists who have withdrawn from the methadone treatment scheme were yesterday ordered to appear before a Competition Authority inquiry into a possible breach of competition law.

The Registrar of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, Dr Ambrose McLoughlin, has said pharmacists and pharmacies could be much better used in the efforts to reform the health service.