A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Increase in number of people covered by health insurance
The number of people covered by private health insurance has begun to rise again, official new figures produced yesterday show, writes Martin Wall.
Figures released by the industry regulator, the Health Insurance Authority (HIA), show the total number of people insured on inpatient plans grew slightly from 2.227 million to 2.229 million between September and December 2010.
The HIA said the average premium paid per insured person last year was €873, an increase of 7.5 per cent over 2009.
The number of people covered by inpatient health insurance plans had been falling since the beginning of 2009. Last year the number of people with such insurance fell by 31,000.
However, the increase of 2,000 in the number of people covered by inpatient health insurance relates to the period before the controversial decision by the VHI in January to increase its subscription prices by up to 45 per cent.
Second man held in horse fair case
A second man has been arrested in relation to the violent scenes at the Smithfield horse fair in Dublin at the weekend, reports Conor Lally.
The man was arrested outside Galway District Court where he was due to appear on charges not related to the violence on Sunday. In his 40s with addresses in Tallaght and in Galway, he was detained under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
He was taken to the Bridewell Garda station in Dublin where the investigation into the incidents at Smithfield is being conducted.
The Irish Times understands the man was at the scene of Sunday’s trouble; however, it is not believed he fired the shots that wounded two men, both of whom are from the same family and have addresses in Offaly and Waterford.
They were shot by a gunman who used an improvised shotgun.
Charities body disappointed
A representative body of almost 900 charities, community and voluntary groups in Ireland has expressed its disappointment with Fine Gael and Labour’s programme for government.
A spokesman for The Wheel said that while there were many positives in the programme, it lacked a vision for the community, voluntary and charity sector.
“It is a bit disappointing to see that the only reference to the community and voluntary sector in the programme for government is one short sentence,” director of advocacy for The Wheel, Ivan Cooper, said yesterday.
He said it was important the Government appreciated the extent of the work done by the Republic’s 7,500 charities to protect the vulnerable and to sustain communities through economic hardships.
He welcomed some of the proposals in the programme, particularly those concerned with reforming the way the Oireachtas operated.