A former solider has received one of the heaviest sentences ever handed down in Northern Ireland for child abuse. He was jailed for 20 years for abusing girls as young as seven while based in Northern Ireland, including his own nine-year-old daughter.

The two nursing unions involved in a dispute with the Government over pay and conditions are due to announce plans for further work stoppages later today.

Gardai in Co Limerick are holding a 21-year-old man following a cannabis seizure yesterday afternoon. The man was detained after a search of a van on the N20 at Rourke’s Cross.

An Ulster hospital was today investigating claims that a 91-year-old woman was sent home from hospital in a taxi – at midnight. According to the SDLP’s Tommy Gallagher, the widow, who declined to be named, was discharged from the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen and told to take a taxi the 25 miles to her rural house near the village of Belleek.

A jury at the Central Criminal Court has been told that a 21-year-old man accused of murdering his 17-year-old sister was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of her killing. Patrick O’Dwyer of Shrohill, Ennistymon, Co Clare, denies murdering his sister, Marguerite, on 29 November, 2004.

Health Minister Mary Harney is expected to get a frosty reception when she addresses the annual conference of the Psychiatric Nurses Association in Co Donegal today.

Missed and cancelled hospital outpatient appointments cost the health service in Northern Ireland more than £11m, an Audit Office report has said. It said about one in 10 outpatient appointments does not take place.

The ongoing political difficulties in the Irish health service have taken another turn with the publication of advertisements for 68 new consultant roles throughout the country. Controversy surrounds the lack of agreed contractual terms and conditions for the new jobs that offer a top salary of more than €200,000.

The two nursing unions involved in a dispute with the Government are preparing a major escalation of their campaign. In the row for better pay and shorter working hours, the unions are planning to hold one-hour work stoppages at around 50 hospitals and mental health facilities.

The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said that patients are suffering as a result of the current work stoppages being undertaken by the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association.