Jude Webber Author Rss

Move sets up a clash at WTO meeting next month after complaints from drinks exporters

Jude Webber — Mon, 22 May 2023 07:51:47 +0000

Ireland says it will become the world’s first country to label alcoholic drinks with comprehensive health warnings, linking them to a slew of fatal illnesses and stating their calorie count in a move that has incensed some of its trading partners and set up a clash at the World Trade Organization.

The new legislation, signed into law by health minister Stephen Donnelly on Monday, will take effect in three years to give producers the time to add the detailed warnings about calorie content, grammes of alcohol and the risk of cancer, liver disease and drinking while pregnant to drinks’ labels.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Jude Webber

Baby food measures highlight novel status of region under the Windsor framework

Jude Webber — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 17:00:14 +0000

New EU rules slashing the amount of arsenic permitted in baby food have highlighted how Northern Ireland is caught between different rules set by Brussels and London, despite this month’s new post-Brexit trading agreement.

Days after UK and EU leaders sealed their deal last week, Brussels cut the level of the carcinogenic substance allowed in infant formula and baby food by 80 per cent and set limits for its use in rice, fruit juice and salt.

Michael Bell, executive director of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association, a trade body, said his members were likely to adopt the EU’s higher standards, which will take effect this month. “We are trying to maintain the ability to trade both to Europe and GB which was possible before Brexit,” he said.

While the baby food sector in Northern Ireland is relatively small, he added that the broader food and drink business is the largest industry in the region, employing 113,000 people.

Maintaining alignment with EU food legislation to ensure it can continue to export means the question of different food standards will “go on and on”, he added, since the EU comes up with scores of new rules annually.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Jude Webber

Long wait lists and patient overcrowding add to problems in region’s healthcare

Jude Webber — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:04:26 +0000

Chris Toner, an emergency nurse at Northern Ireland’s biggest hospital, loves his vocation. But as NHS staff strike for better pay and conditions this week, he admits that he often hates his job.

“It never lets up. You’re burned out constantly. You hate having to come into work in the mornings,” said Toner at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), where the pressures that have led to NHS strike action being called in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from Monday are among the most acute in the UK.

In Northern Ireland, the national health service is critically ill. The region spends nearly half of its total budget on healthcare but its waiting lists are by far the longest in the UK.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Jude Webber

She demanded action after exposing one of the most shocking medical scandals in Ireland’s history

Jude Webber — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 01:00:23 +0000

Vicky Phelan called herself a “stubborn bitch”. But the tenacity of the Irish cervical cancer campaigner, who has died aged 48, exposed one of the most shocking medical scandals in the country’s history.

Phelan highlighted the plight of more than 200 women like herself who were falsely told their cervical smear tests were normal and only learned years later — in her case, when she was already terminally ill — that the mistake had been discovered, but kept secret.

Following her death on Monday — which doctors had told Phelan could have been prevented had she been correctly diagnosed — Taoiseach Micheál Martin honoured “the poise, determination, courage and compassion she showed in her battle not just with cancer but also with the system that failed her, and so many others, so dismally”.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Jude Webber