Free bus travel, free television licences, heating bill payments – one Conservative minister in Britain has suggested rich pensioners may not need them all.
The whip system – where TDs must vote with their party position or risk expulsion – is the subject of some debate in political circles but immediate reform, ahead of potentially divisive abortion debate, appears unlikely.
The Minister was speaking after it emerged the Irish Hospital Consultants Association will not be attending reform talks in the Labour Court on Thursday.
That is the view of the United Nations, which said nearly a third of North Korean children under the age of 5 show signs of stunting. 16 million North Koreans rely on food rations.
President Francois Hollande’s parliamentary majority will give him the opportunity to push through budget and tax reforms, and to move away from austerity towards growth.
Japan is to take steps to forgive about 300 billion yen (€2.8 billion) of Burma’s debt and resume development aid in a bid to support democratic and economic reforms in the country.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has admitted he can’t guarantee there won’t be individual problems caused by the exodus of public sector workers at the end of the month.
Five things you need to know before you head out the door: the Betfair controversy, an investigation into the death of a man in Dublin; and students have their say on Junior Cert reforms.
The public service reforms to be announced will see less of a reduction in staff numbers in the public sector than had been pledged in the programme for government.
The demonstrators were calling for Egypt’s military rulers to speed up the pace of democratic reforms in a country that is still charting its political future.
SIXTY-EIGHT PER cent of patients are unaware that they can officially complain about their hospital stay.
An Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare survey revealed that although 93 per cent of the patients surveyed were satisfied with the service they received, one in every five wanted to discuss an area of dissatisfaction but a third felt they never had the opportunity to do so.
The aspects of care that patients were most dissatisfied with included emergency department conditions and waiting times and lack of information about hospital routines, tests, medication side effects and after-care.
So today we want to know: Have you ever lodged a complaint about a hospital?
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