Search Results for 'frontline services'

Fine Gael party leader, Enda Kenny TD, along with members of his front bench have outlined the core elements of the party’s ‘5-point plan to get Ireland working’. The plan is designed to create jobs, reform the health system, fix the budget crisis, make Government smaller and more cost effective and put the burden on politicians first.

A general election candidate and a founding member of Hope4Disability, a local disability action group, has slammed what he terms the “obscene” amount of more than €7 million spent by the HSE West on legal fees for barristers and solicitors last year.

A number of nurses at University Hospital Galway, under severe pressure from staff and bed shortages, have written to management disclaiming responsibility in the event of anything going wrong on their watch, a local nursing union representative revealed this week.

While on a whistle-stop tour of Carlow Kilkenny earlier this week, Labour Party Leader Eamon Gilmore spoke confidently of returning at least one if not two seats for Labour in the constituency in the upcoming general election.

A leading local nursing union official is calling for a crisis summit on the health services to be convened immediately.

Hope4Disability, the Galway based disability representative group, is appealing to the Government not to impose any further health cuts to protect existing frontline services for people with disabilities.

The country is insolvent with a deficit of €20bn and national debt of in excess of €300bn. We must find massive savings in current spending leading to a reduction in the deficit and thus a reduction in borrowing. Increasing taxes will have some albeit a limited benefit as they generate diminishing return in line with the increases levied. So we must close the gap elsewhere.

The devil was in the detail as the HSE finally disclosed its cutback plans for Mayo General Hospital this week, which will include cuts in staff numbers through “moratoriums and natural staff turnovers”, reduced working hours for temporary staff (amounting to 7,000 working hours every week off the rosters of 400 temporary staff throughout the region), bed closures to be achieved through essential-only admissions to hospital with day assessment prioritised and direct cuts on elective surgery that will directly impact on patient waiting times.

A local union boss is urging people to take to the streets and protest over the forthcoming health cuts before the axe falls on the service.

Fine Gael spokesperson on social protection Deputy Michael Ring has said that HSE cutbacks in frontline services will “put patients' lives at risk”. The deputy also reacted with anger to the appointment of area operations managers in the HSE.