Drinks exports play a vital role in the Irish economy, Simon Coveney, the food minister, told agri-food leaders at briefings in Illinois and Chicago yesterday.

Dennis Quaid describes a harrowing scene with “blood everywhere” as doctors and nurses worked to save his newborn twins after they were given an overdose of a blood thinner.

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife have launched a lawsuit against the makers of heparin after their newborn twins were inadvertently given massive doses of the blood thinner at a hospital.