Patients and families are paying the price. No one chooses cancer, dialysis or a long hospital stay. The fact is that these charges punish people for being sick. Parents visiting sick children, carers and people with disabilities are being…

more than 200,000 people are currently waiting for some form of outpatient appointment in hospitals across Ireland.

official figures I have received show that, of this overall group, some patients are waiting more than 709 weeks for an outpatient appointment.

No one should be rushed or forced into making a decision about an abortion.

When a woman is certain that this is what she wants, it allows her to make that decision for herself in her own time, about her own pregnancy without a mandatory delay.

Women should have access to abortion services on the basis of their own choice