Heroin with a potential street value of €200,000 has been seized by gardai in Dublin. A 33-year-old is being questioned by detectives following the raid on a house in Kilcronan

The average cost of a health insurance claim for a person over 60 is approximately four times higher than the average cost of claims for a person under the age of 40, according to Vhi Healthcare. Figures released by the company today show that although people of all age profiles get sick and need to make claims, medical costs are predominantly age-related, with costs for the elderly significantly more expensive for the insurer. 22% of those in the age category 18-39 claimed, while 84% of those over 60 made a claim.

More than 5,000 attacks on health workers in Northern Ireland have taken place in the last year, a doctors’ organisation has claimed. The BMA NI Council’s Dr Brian Patterson was speaking as they launched a survey to gauge the level and nature of violence against staff. “Attacks on, threats to, and verbal abuse of doctors and other health-care workers have to stop,” he said. “Urgent action is needed to halt this totally unacceptable situation.”

The number of homeless children not being cared for by any family member has risen to almost 500, according to the latest unpublished figures. The majority of 492 homeless children were in their mid-to-late teens. However, some 22 homeless children were under the age of 12, according to figures compiled by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Department of Health.

Some of the world’s top judges and magistrates are due in Northern Ireland today for an international convention on the protection of children’s rights. President Mary McAleese, the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland Sir Brian Kerr and Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, will join 500 delegates across the world at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall for the opening ceremony of the prestigious event.

Urgent action must be taken to reduce waiting lists for psychiatric consultation which stand at more than 12 months in many areas of Ireland, it has been claimed. Dan Neville, a Fine Gael TD, called for the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to be made available to mental health patients. “It is simply unacceptable that waiting lists in many areas of the country are in excess of 12 months for psychiatric consultation,” he said. “Despite this the NTPF has never been available to mental health patients and, in the area of child and adolescent psychiatry, in particular, there are waiting periods of one year or more.”

At the Rape Crisis Centre on Belfast’s Donegall Street, director Eileen Calder is running late. A counselling session has just finished. The centre’s only other full time worker, Eileen Kelly, opens the window of the counselling room and apologises for the smell of cigarette smoke: “Some women find it very difficult to talk.”

Teenage binge-drinkers in Ulster are caught up in a deadly game of Russian roulette – oblivious they are risking a terrifying brain disease. For alcohol action teams are warning that people in their 30s are now being diagnosed with a brain disorder more usually seen in long-time heavy drinkers in their 60s. The young binge-drinkers are developing Korsakoffs psychosis – a form of dementia usually linked to alcohol abuse. And those at risk of what’s been described as “a ticking timebomb” are young people flooding clubs and pubs for bargain-basement booze and happy hours.

The scheme to pay back people who were illegally charged for nursing home care has finally commenced. An estimated 70,000 people or their estates can now apply for repayment. The scheme covers long-stay residents of public and other residential facilities and/or those who occupied a private nursing and who were wrongfully charged at any time between August 1976 and December 2004. According to the HSE, people who were wrongfully charged ‘are generally defined as those who had or were eligible for a medical card and should not have been charged for publicly funded residential care, but were charged what are known as public long-stay charges’.

The Irish Nursing Homes Organisation has criticised what it regards as the Government’s failure to reform the Nursing Home Subvention scheme. “The failure of the Government to radically reform the subvention scheme for persons in long-term residential care is extremely disappointing, and is causing serious distress for many elderly people and their families all over the country,” said Tadhg Daly, chief executive of the Irish Nursing Homes Organisation (INHO).