The first step in a massive shake-up of how Ulster’s health service is run has been taken after the province’s 18 health trusts officially merged into five this weekend.

Alarm has been expressed at a 37 per increase in the suicide rate in the North over the past year. In the latest mortality statistics there were 291 registered suicides in 2006 compared with 213 in 2005.

Negotiations have continued overnight between management at the Health Service Executive and officials of the Irish Nurses Organisation, in an attempt to break the deadlock over the opening of Cork University Maternity Hospital.

Sick leave among council workers is higher in Northern Ireland than in England and the civil service, according to the Audit Office. In the past year, absenteeism among staff cost £14m in lost productivity.

Around 1,700 jobs are to be cut from Ulster’s health service as part of a massive shake-up of the way it is run – more than double the original estimate.

People in Northern Ireland at risk from hate crime are being offered extra protection – including personal and home alarms and 24-hour access to the police – as part of a government initiative responding to alarming rises in such incidents.

A women’s organisation has called for tougher sentencing after a pimp was jailed in Belfast for four months. Michael Hill, 39, of Plantation Avenue, Carrickfergus, admitted controlling prostitutes for gain.

Over 130 convicted sex offenders are due to walk free from jail halfway through their sentence while the Government continues to deliberate over legislation to replace Ulster’s controversial 50% remission policy, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal today.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the DPP to try a 70-year-old priest on charges of indecently assaulting a teenage girl in the north-east in the early 1980s. It overturned a ruling by the High Court which stated that the prosecutorial delays were inexcusable.

The Inspector of Mental Health Services has said the vast majority of the system’s catchment areas lack sufficient staff to provide the multidisciplinary services required by law.