The Emergency Department at Roscommon County Hospital closed this morning amid continuing controversy.
Yesterday, the Sunday Business Post reported that the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, had told a rally in Roscommon on February 8 that "We are committed to maintaining the services at Roscommon County Hospital."
You don’t need to go into space to find some remarkable living creatures who make Bear Grylls look like a pansy. In fact simple life can live in the most bizarre conditions, writes John Holden.
Extremophiles are simple life forms, usually bacteria, found in places that often lack some of the basic constituents previously thought essential for life to exist.
The combination of improved research methods and ever advancing technologies is now showing forms of life in some of the most bizarre places.
The EU-IMF Memorandum of understanding makes no mention of a flat-rate household charge. Luckily the Government parties - both of whom campaigned against it - don't intend to introduce one. Oh, wait...By Michael Taft.
A new report from the agency UN Women shows that there is still a huge gap between the legal guarantees of rights afforded to women and their everyday lives. Prefacing the report, its authors write: “This volume of Progress of the World’s Women starts with a paradox: the past century has seen a transformation in women’s legal rights, with countries in every region expanding the scope of women’s legal entitlements.
The Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) held a conference in Dublin on Friday 1 July calling for "comprehensive reform of the child protection and welfare system in Ireland to promote and protect the welfare of children".
It gets this weird - the Government is subsidising companies that are cutting their own workforce, all in the name of subsidising job creation. Nonetheless, the Government will eventually claim that it is a success. It is the classic three-card trick – and we end up getting fleeced. By Michael Taft.
The British New Economics Foundation (nef) today released a report, The Ratio, which suggests forcing companies to reveal the ratio between their bottom and top pay level. One of the report's authors, David Boyle, says:
"For too long, campaigns against corporate greed and ever-widening pay ratios have tended to be defensive and negative. They have been campaigns against rather than campaigns for equity, or anything else.
A US government agency is offering $500,000 to the individual or firm in the private sector with the best idea for how to send people to a star, writes John Holden.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) like their ideas big. The US government’s 1980s space-based missile defense system, otherwise known as "Star Wars", was their idea. As is the 100 Year Starship Study – a century long project which aims to re-ignite the public’s interest in further space exploration as well as come up with real ideas to get to a star.
The statisics on domestic abuse in Ireland are often worrying, and the government needs to do more to ensure victims are protected. By Justin Frewen.
“… one in five Irish women who have ever been in a relationship experience physical, emotional, financial or sexual abuse.” (Margaret Martin, Director Women’s Aid)
The recent launch of the annual statistics report for 2010 by Women’s Aid on domestic violence serves once more to highlight the continuing abuse inflicted on so many women in Ireland by their partners.
A new Convention on rights for domestic workers has been adopted by the International Labour Organisation. Domestic workers are one of the least protected groups in Ireland, and it is hoped that this measure will vastly improve their working conditions. By Bernard O'Rourke.