Nurses are set to escalate their campaign of industrial action today with two-hour work stoppages at 12 hospitals and mental health facilities across the country. Six facilities will be hit between 10am and midday and another six between 2pm and 4pm in the afternoon.

The High Court has been told that the fetus being carried by a 17-year-old girl who wants an abortion in the UK has the same right to life as any other unborn child, even though it will not survive long after being born.

It would be inhumane to force a pregnant teenager to carry her baby for nine months knowing it would die, Ireland’s High Court has heard. The 17-year-old girl, known only as Miss D and from Leinster, is asking judges to allow her to travel to Britain for an abortion after health chiefs told her she could not go.

Nurses embark on their escalated industrial action this morning. 23 general hospitals and psychiatric services across the country will be hit by hour-long work-stoppages today between 11 am and 12 am.

Dementia in Northern Ireland will rise by more than 25% in the next 10 years, according to research. The research, commissioned by the Alzheimer’s Society, suggests more than 20,500 people in Northern Ireland will be living with dementia by 2017. The illness currently affects 16,000 people in Northern Ireland.

The state has no power to stop a teenage girl travelling to Britain for an abortion, the Irish High Court was told yesterday. The 17-year-old, who is four months pregnant, is challenging the Health Service Executive (HSE) which is preventing her from terminating her pregnancy overseas

Authorities at the Craigavon Area Hospital should carry out a full inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of a man whose body was hanging from a tree for over three weeks, it was urged last night.

The biggest Catholic Archdiocese in Ireland has revealed how many priests are suspected of abusing children. In the archdiocese of Dublin, 145 men have been identified in an investigation dating back to 1940.

The Minister for Justice has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of how a prisoner at the country’s maximum security jail managed to phone RTÉ’s Liveline radio programme on a mobile phone from his cell.

Talks between nursing unions and health service employers have ended at Government Buildings without agreement. In a statement after the talks ended, the Health Service Executive accused the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association of rejecting a viable and workable solution to end the industrial action.