Anti-abortion activists have no right to pose a threat to women seeking medical care, and that is what their protests outside maternity hospitals and GP surgeries are intended to do

The Minister for Health engaged in an ill-informed and ill-advised exercise in finger-pointing, instead of taking responsibility for his government‘s failure to solve the trolley crisis

Paramedics and advanced paramedics are vital for our emergency services, yet paramedics are not defined as health care professionals or subject to regulation

The government’s response to the problems in emergency departments is well-rehearsed and utterly ineffective. The steps needed to ease the pressure are obvious. To do anything less is to turn overcrowding into official policy

The narrative that Ireland is an excessively high spender on health should be challenged

There is huge frustration in government that funds spent on health do not readily translate into positive, measurable impact, unlike voter-friendly tax cuts

Freed from fighting fires over operational matters, those in charge could take the time to step back and look at the big picture – to the benefit of us all

Not only does the government fail to let the health service plan ahead or budget for vital services, it cynically lets the HSE take the blame for any shortfalls

The first step to a better service is ending the brain drain that results in hundreds of gifted doctors leaving for higher-paid jobs elsewhere

Under-pressure GPs have become soft targets for venture capitalists who offer to take the ownership burden off their shoulders in the interest of profit

After eight years of governance vandalism, the new HSE board urgently needs to call a halt to Fine Gael’s merry dance

A tendency to defer to the Catholic Church held back our social progress in the past. We must be alert to the danger of putting figures in authority, such as developers, bankers or the PAC, on a pedestal now

The Waterford mortuary saga shows the chronic shortage of capital funding for the health service

We all need to be concerned about the state of the health service, even if we have Rolls-Royce health insurance ourselves

The HSE is on a merry-go-round of budgetary despair, and only politicians can stop it

The industrial action by nurses in our health service has already become ‘a threat to life and limb’. And it’s set to escalate this week. So what can be done?

Prioritising one patient group - perhaps because of the power of their advocacy - means another group will lose out, even if their case for funding is much stronger

Ambiguity and confusion about who is responsible for what means a lack of accountability that is making the health service sick

Much of the treatment is to a very high standard, but executing a real shift in the way the service works will call for hard decisions from politicians, writes HSE chief Tony O’Brien

Director general Tony O’Brien says we need to stop relying solely on hospitals for our care