Nurses accuse Cowen of strike `scaremongering'

Saturday/Sunday

Two men were arrested in Co Kerry at the weekend in connection with a Garda investigation after the body of a 19-year-old Dublin woman was found in a caravan at Ventry, near Dingle.

As the annual Ballinasloe, Co Galway, horse fair got under way, eight men appeared before a special sitting of the local District Court charged with public order offences. In what was described as another "fair-related incident", two men were arrested in connection with the burglary of a house in nearby Caltra. Four other men were arrested on the outskirts of Ballinasloe under the Offences Against the State Act.

The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, speaking at the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association conference in Tullamore, said the threatened strike by nurses would not undermine social partnership but would inflict hardship on patients and clients of the health service.

The Minister was accused by the nurses' unions of "scaremongering" for claiming that their failure to accept management criteria on emergency cover would put patients' lives at risk.

Monday

The Government announced an Exchequer surplus of £1.7 billion. The new figures fuelled demands for the Government to negotiate a settlement with the nurses. Employers' organisations, along with major unions, also called for significant tax concessions in the Budget.

Talks between the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, and the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, broke up without any progress in advance of the Mitchell review. Decommissioning remained the main issue preventing the UUP from accepting Sinn Fein's participation in the new Northern Ireland executive. The two leaders are to meet again next week after the UUP conference in Enniskillen this weekend.

Tuesday

The Cabinet formally decided that Ireland will join the NATO-led Partnership for Peace security programme. In spite of a promise in the Fianna Fail general election manifesto in 1997, it was confirmed by the FF/PD Coalition that no referendum will be held on the matter.

The Garda, English police and Customs and Excise in Britain "colluded" to hold Mr John Gilligan in custody unlawfully to allow the Irish authorities to gather evidence against him, his counsel told a House of Lords appeal.

A High Court decision delayed the arrival of fresh competition in the mobile phone market. Ms Justice Macken said a decision by Ms Etain Doyle, the telecommunications regulator, to award a mobile phone licence to Meteor was objectively biased and unreasonable.

Wednesday

The National Economic and Social Council (NESC) said "rising real disposable incomes will gradually begin to replace employment growth as the principal benefit from further economic progress". This was in a final draft of its assessment and recommendations for a new national wage agreement to succeed Partnership 2000. Increases of up to 16 per cent in social welfare payments were recommended.

Meanwhile, at its conference in Killarney, SIPTU delegates, in spite of many misgivings, voted overwhelmingly to enter talks on a new national agreement.

The former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, sent almost £16,000 from his State-funded party leader's allowance to the Paris firm of Charvet which sells expensive hand-tailored shirts, the Moriarty tribunal revealed.

The tribunal also questioned claims by the former Taoiseach about money raised for the medical expenses of the late Mr Brian Lenihan, which were deposited in the party leader's account.

The tribunal heard that Mr John Ellis, a Fianna Fail TD for Sligo-Leitrim, was twice rescued from bankruptcy proceedings by Mr Haughey, who gave him £12,600 in December 1989 and £13,600 in March 1990.

Thursday

As revelations from the Moriarty tribunal continued to centre on Mr Haughey, the Supreme Court decided he and family members should pay a legal bill of up to £500,000. It follows legal bills arising out of the 1997 McCracken tribunal.

Notes of an internal discussion between two senior AIB executives on the extent of the bank's liability for DIRT indicated it was hiding facts from the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Jim Mitchell, chairman of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts, asserted.

Mr Mitchell referred in particular to a paragraph of senior executive Ms Deirdre Fullen's note which read: "I agree with Ian that there is a contingent liability there, but it would be impossible to quantify same without bringing it to the attention of the Revenue Commissioners, and obviously we do not wish to go this route."