The President of SIPTU has said the payment of money by the Department of Health into an unauthorised SIPTU account is "immensely damaging" to the union.

THE country’s largest trade union, SIPTU, has been accused of withholding information from a major HSE inquiry.

OVER years when health services were creaking, a fund controlled by a SIPTU official funded lavish overseas junkets for senior trade union officials and public servants, the Dáil public spending watchdog heard yesterday.

SIPTU has decided to demote its senior official who was a signatory to the account at the centre of the controversial HSE SKILL training fund.

A BARRISTER is to be hired by SIPTU to investigate its employment relationship with one of the signatories of a controversial account used to fund 31 foreign trips and to channel money to unions.

AFTER months of waiting, SIPTU has finally received access to an accountancy report on the account at the centre of the controversial HSE SKILL training fund.

SIPTU is to pay the €70,000 cost of an expert report on the account at the centre of the controversial HSE SKILL training fund.

SIPTU wants to publish a report within the next three weeks on the controversial SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund into which the state and private sources placed almost €4.5 million between 2001-2010, but which the union has repeatedly insisted it knew nothing about.

THE boss of the HSE has said his organisation must take responsibility for accountancy failures related to the spending of millions of euro of ‘partnership funding’ some of which was used to finance at least 21 foreign trips by dozens of state employees and trade union officials.

A LETTER signed by former Health Minster Micheál Martin authorising the continued payment of funds into the controversial SKILL programme health sector training fund will be scrutinised at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing today.

THE Department of the Environment is still in the dark about what became of €200,000 it paid into a “dubious” bank account managed under the umbrella of SIPTU.

CIVIL servants who travelled to New York, Boston, London and Georgia using funds from a SIPTU bank account could be asked to pay back the money to the taxpayer.

A SIPTU bank account at the centre of a number of investigations was used to fund six trips to New York by a Department of Finance official who had a key role in industrial relations issues.

Two senior trade union officials were the signatories to a bank account at the centre of a State training scheme expenses controversy, it emerged today.

UP to 1,000 new permanent jobs will be created this year in the latest reconfiguration of services by the Health Service Executive.

HEALTH services are to revert to local control in the next 18 months under a massive restructuring of the Health Service Executive.

AT least 1,200 members of the ambulance service across the country will begin nationwide strike action on April 7.

MORE than 1,200 ambulance personnel are to be balloted for strike action within the next 10 days over the HSE’s decision to use private ambulance services.

SIPTU has warned that the risk to patients posed by cutbacks in the health service will continue next year because of further budget shortfalls.

DOZENS of firefighters racing to save lives and quench fires across the country are being landed with penalty points, it was claimed yesterday.

Health chiefs will meet today to discuss the launch of a new volunteer hospital patient support group.

THERE was some disquiet during the week over the disclosure that G2 (military intelligence) were keeping files on civilians like Anthony Coughlan, as well as the usual suspects who had previously had connections with subversive organisations.

SIPTU has expressed concern about inertia in the Government's plans to reform, restructure and improve the Irish health services.

The Government must stick to its pledge to set up a National Fire Authority, union leaders insisted today.

PART-TIME firefighters who break the speed limit while driving to an emergency are not exempt from penalty points.

HOSPITAL consultants warned yesterday they will oppose any move to exclude them from private practice in public hospitals.

PART-TIME firefighters have called off their proposed strike next week.

PART-time firefighters are voting overwhelmingly for a national strike.