They were planning to celebrate his second birthday today. But instead, the parents of a toddler who died after falling from an upstairs window at the family home were last night preparing for his funeral.

Campaigners have welcomed the breakthrough in the West Cork ambulance service reconfiguration saga which will see the region retain its four ambulances.

Plans to modernise the ambulance service in north Cork will begin next month.

A junior minister has claimed the HSE was using industrial relations as a “a bit of a smokescreen” to defer dealing with concerns over its plans to restructure the ambulance service in East Cork.

THE Minister of State for research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock, has said the HSE’s imminent ambulance changes for Cork and Kerry must be postponed.

MORE than 100 paramedics are earning over €6 million in overtime sick cover every year — a figure which is trebling their basic pay.

SENIOR HSE officials have insisted there will be “absolutely no cutbacks” to ambulance services in Cork and Kerry — despite plans to cut on-call hours, reduce ambulance numbers and place an emphasis on first responder volunteers in rural communities.

THE head of the country’s ambulance service has urged the people of West Cork not to believe “false and misleading information” which he claimed is being “pumped out by vested interests”.

THE HSE has blamed the recruitment ban for missing today’s deadline for the establishment of a national aero-medical co-ordination centre.

MEADHBH McGivern’s father has said that he was shocked at a report’s finding that no single body had overall responsibility for co-ordinating travel plans for patients requiring transplant surgery in Britain.

A teenage girl missed a vital liver transplant in London because of a lack of leadership and an unreliable system for arranging rapid air ambulance transport, a health watchdog has found.

Pest control-to-hygiene group Rentokil Initial today announced falling profits due to difficult trading and the cost of its business shake-up.

Catering giant Compass served up a reassuring trading update today that confirmed it was on course for at least 6% growth in like-for-like revenues.

Catering giant Compass lost a quarter of its market value today after warning full-year profits would be hit by a string of factors.