Billy O’Callaghan looks at two collections of short stories, one uneven and the other a series of enduring, almost timeless classics.

A 38-year-old author last night scooped the richest literary award confined to Irish writers for her first novel.

More than three decades after winning her first Hennessy literary prize, writer Deirdre Madden has been inducted into the Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame.

A junior Government minister said he is “not aware of any plans” to legislate in the area of assisted human reproduction (AHR), despite a commitment in the Programme for Government to do so.

A leading medical law expert has described as “unconscionable” and “contrary to the best interests of children”, the Government’s failure to introduce legislation governing fertility treatments.

The Government needs to recognise modern fertility tourism and legislate for surrogacy, to avoid surrogate children being left abandoned, parentless, and stateless.

Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori grabbed headlines in the ’90s when he used IVF and egg donation to help menopausal women get pregnant — in 1993, a 59-year-old from Britain gave birth to twins.

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) and Department of Health were questioned on the use of dead children for research in Irish universities years before the scandal became public.

The Department of Health has established an international “oversight group” to ensure the recommendations of the damning Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) investigation into Tallaght Hospital are implemented.

Patients who do not want to be resuscitated should make their views clear before a life-threatening illness strikes, in order to help prevent stand-offs between families and medics, a leading doctor has said.

MEDICAL and legal experts tasked with setting out a blueprint to regulate the area of assisted human reproduction have called on the Government to take responsibility and introduce legislation in the interest of patient safety.

Guidelines for assisted human reproduction must be cemented by legislation, writes Catherine Shanahan.

IRELAND could be to the forefront in designing new organisms in the drive to create life-saving drugs as well as energy sources, leading bioscientist Dr James McInerney has claimed.

FORMER Minister for Health, Micheál Martin forwarded the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR) report to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children four years ago but its members failed to ever publish a report on proposed legislation.

AN Irish mother suffered a “significant delay” in being diagnosed with breast cancer because her doctor refused to accept the lump was anything other than a clogged milk duct.

AMERICAN author Marilynne Robinson won the 14th Orange Prize for Fiction last night for her novel Home.

YOU walk into a room and search for somewhere to sit. It’s crowded but luckily a single chair is still free, next to what appears to be a respectable grandmother.

LAWS presuming a person’s willingness to donate their organs when they die are being considered as part of a consultation by the Department of Health.

Rogue medics who open private clinics could be targeted under guidelines to license the industry, it emerged tonight.

The Government was today urged to set up an investigation to probe the alleged sale of human organs to drug companies without families’ consent.

ALL patients’ hospital medical records are to be standardised next year to ensure vital information is not missed, the Health Service Executive (HSE) announced yesterday.

A member of the team investigating the misdiagnosis of breast cancer sufferer Rebecca O’Malley urged the Government today to designate specialist testing centres around the country.

Health Minister Mary Harney tonight ordered an investigation into how a woman with breast cancer was twice mistakenly given the all-clear.

SOME of the last pictures of Jacqueline Rushton show her playing with her niece.

COUPLES seeking fertility treatment will be able to check whether clinics are fully licensed under new rules on the quality and safety of human tissue and cells from next year.

NEW legislation on post mortems and the removal, retention, storage, use and disposal of human tissue will be introduced next year.

A CAMPAIGN group representing more than 1,000 families, who discovered that their deceased children’s organs were retained without their consent, yesterday hand-delivered their 11th letter seeking a meeting with Health Minister Mary Harney.

IT is obscene the head of Dunne Inquiry into Organ Retention and her senior legal team were each paid €1,902 a day for a job that they never completed, campaign group Parents for Justice (PFJ) said yesterday.

A MANDATORY licensing system for public and private healthcare services is to be drawn up by the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance, Health Minister, Mary Harney, revealed yesterday.

A LEADING expert on medical ethics said legislation and regulation was essential to govern the activities of fertility clinics and clarify the rights of the embryos they produce, store and implant.

LEGISLATION must be introduced immediately to ensure that no post-mortem examination can be carried out or organs retained without appropriate authorisation, a new report insists.

PARENTS whose children’s organs were retained without their knowledge or consent were angry and upset after viewing an unpublished report of a four-year Government inquiry into the controversy.

ALARM bells about the ability of the Dunne Inquiry into Organ Retention to complete its work would have rung much sooner if it was obliged to produce interim progress reports, according to Comptroller and Auditor General.

Parents whose deceased children’s organs were retained by hospitals today said they were unhappy after viewing an unpublished report of a Government inquiry into the scandal.

A LANDMARK legal action to decide the fate of three frozen embryos is due to be heard in the High Court today.

CHILDREN’S author Kate Thompson has clinched, for a record fourth time, the top prize in the Bisto Book of the Year awards.

NOVELIST John Banville has scooped another literary award winning the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year award for his Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea at the inaugural Irish Book Awards last night.

A ‘DOCTOR knows best’ culture in Irish hospitals resulted in grieving parents not being informed that the organs and glands of their dead children were retained and sometimes sold, the Madden Report into the practice has found.

PARENTS should never again face the trauma of learning the organs of their dead children have been removed and disposed of without their consent, the Madden Report into organ retention concludes.

The inquiry into the retention of dead children's organs by Irish hospitals has reportedly found that nobody profited from the controversial practice.

Parents of children whose organs were retained by Irish hospitals have been forced to wait until the report into the scandal is publicly released today before having a chance to read it.

THE Madden Report into organ retention, which will be published today, is expected to put particular emphasis on poor communications between doctors and parents.

The Madden report into the retention of children’s organs by hospitals will be published tomorrow, the Tánaiste Mary Harney said today.