Everyone over the age of 70 in the State will now enjoy free healthcare following a vote in favour of new proposals by the country's GPs.
Some 85 per cent of family doctors, members of the Irish Medical Organisation, have voted in favour of a proposal to accept all patients over 70 on to medical card lists.
The IMO negotiated an annual capitation fee of £365 for new entrants to the scheme. This fee is about 12 times the fee paid to GPs for a younger single person on low income. An estimated 40,000 people will benefit from the move.
However the chief executive of the IMO , Mr George McNeice, criticised the decline in the number of people eligible for free healthcare. "The real decline in the numbers covered by the scheme is directly and adversely affecting those at the lower end of the income scale", he said.
Fine Gael criticised the new deal. Mr Gay Mitchell TD, party spokesperson on health, said: "This move has compromised the potential for the future extension of the medical card scheme to more poor people as the Department of Finance will balk at the new headline cost set by the Minister."
In relation to plans for a revamped primary care service revealed in yesterday's Irish Times, Mr Mitchell criticised Mr Martin for making proposals "that he condemned as unworkable when Fine Gael first put them forward last November".
The IMO also criticised the plan. "We are surprised and disappointed and not a little frustrated not to be consulted", Mr McNeice said.
The Irish Times revealed details of a health strategy document which proposes significant changes in primary care. Rather than accessing services through a GP, the document outlined a proposal to create a "one-stop-shop" where teams of health professionals would be directly accessible by patients.
Mr McNeice said the plan was unlikely to be accepted by doctors. "Such a radical shift in policy, if proceeded with, threatens the personal relationship between GP and patient. It is a theoretical approach which remains unproven. We could end up replicating the least desirable features of our overwhelmed outpatient departments."
Only nine out of 29 third-level institutions have an on-campus creche for the children of students and staff in Northern Ireland and the Republic, according to a survey published by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).
Waterford Institute of Technology, however, will have a creche by September. Queens University Belfast had the largest on-campus creche, catering for 80 children, following by UCD, which has provision for 68 and Trinity College, which provides for 52. Costs also varied from £95 per week at UCD to £40 per week in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra.
Mr Richard Hammond, president of USI, said survey results were an indictment of the failure to address childcare in education. He said the absence of adequate on-campus childcare prevented parents reaching their full potential.