HEALTH SERVICES: A new scheme of registration and inspection of residential services for people with disabilities has been announced today.

The scheme will come in to effect from on Friday (November 1st) and will be delivered by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA).



HIQA will be able to set and monitor standards for designated centres which include residential services provided to persons with disabilities. They will also be empowered to undertake investigations regarding the safety, quality and standards of such residential services.

Speaking today the Minister of State with responsibility for Disability, Kathleen Lynch what she called   'a new era' for people with disabilities living in residential services.

“The introduction of this scheme has been a priority of mine and is a commitment in the Programme for Government. I would be the first to acknowledge that the disability sector itself has been calling for this for a number of years and I am very pleased that this long awaited scheme has now been rolled out.”

The minister said that the new, detailed standards combined with guidance from HIQA will enable care providers to deliver even higher quality services. 

The scheme was also welcomed by Health Minister, Dr James Reilly. Dr Reilly said vulnerable citizens would now enjoy the benefit of an inspectorate. 

 "This new development addresses this deficit. It will be of real value to recipients and providers of care alike and as such I warmly welcome it," Minister Reilly said.

 MEDICAL CARDS: The Health Service Executive (HSE) will launch a new communications strategy in an effort to deal with concerns over medical card eligibility.

Welcoming the efforts of the HSE, the Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly said that people need the full information regarding medical cards.



Public concern on the issue of medical cards has been heightened in recent times and in response to a request by Minister Reilly, the HSE has devised a wide ranging plan to improve the provision of information regarding eligibility.

“People are naturally worried and become anxious when they can’t get full access to all the facts they need. I welcome this major campaign being rolled out by the HSE over the coming weeks which I hope will help explain clearly people's entitlements and may ease the fears of those who have been worried unnecessarily," Dr Reilly said. 

"No one who is entitled to a medical card need worry. Despite the significant savings to be made by the HSE in the year ahead, nobody who is entitled to a medical card will lose it or be refused one," the Minister added.

The HSE plan includes; providing extra resources to the national Call Centre for public enquiries, a public information campaign through media advertisements, the development of a key new Information Leaflet, improved support on the HSE website and wide ranging training for front line staff. 

 The roll out of this campaign is scheduled over the next period, with some elements already actioned already.

Holiday makers vacationing to the Emerald Isle have shown an increase of almost 8 per cent for the period july-September 2013 according to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). 

New figures released today show that the actual number of  inward vacation trips to Ireland increased by 2,261,000. That's an increase of 164, 300 on the same period last year. 

According to the CSO figures, trips into the country by people from the USA showed an increase of 13.6 per cent, to a total of 415,000. Trips by residents of other European countries (excluding the UK) rose by 1.2 per cent to 786,200. 

Holiday makers traveling to Ireland from the UK saw an increase of  9 per cent, to 904,700.

The total number of overseas trips made by Irish residents during the same July - September 2013 period increased by 1.5 per cent to 2,032,600.

Speaking to the Irish Times newspaper the Minister for Tourism, Leo Varadkar said that 2013 had been a good year for tourism in Ireland. He highlighted points such as The Gathering, better value for money and improvements in air access into the country as contributing factors. 

A well known sauce company has withdrawn a batch of their cooking sauce from Irish supermarket shelves over contamination concerns. 

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), reported today that UK based, Patak's has withdrawn their Jalfrezi cooking sauce following complaints that a large piece of plastic was found to be present in some jars. 

The jars being withdrawn are the 450g, Jalfrezi cooking sauce. These are identifiable by the batch code 3178, and have a best before date of 12-2014.

No  other batches of the sauce have been affected in this case.