Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Rollingnews.ie

Third death in Ireland, Dáil sitting for emergency legislation, Italy fatalities overtake China: Today's Covid-19 main points

There are now 428 cases of the coronavirus on the island of Ireland.

LAST UPDATE | 19 Mar 2020

THE DÁIL HAS been sitting today to pass emergency legislation to help combat the  Covid-19 outbreak.

A limited number of TDs have been attendance at a sitting of the Dáil from 2 pm to debate measures which will remove waiting time for social welfare allowances, as well as outlining powers that would allow those suspected of being infected with the illness to be detained.

This evening, it was announced that a third person had died from the virus in Ireland, while another 191 cases of the virus were confirmed, bringing the total in Ireland to 557.

Ten new cases were also announced in the North, bringing the total number there to 62.

Elsewhere, the North confirmed its first death from the virus after an elderly patient passed away in a hospital in the greater Belfast area.

But China has reported no new domestic cases if the illness for the first time.

The country’s health ministry said today that results over the past 24 hours showed 34 new cases, all detected in people arriving from abroad.

Here are today’s main Covid-19 points:

  • The Department of Health confirmed 191 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland, and said another person has died from the virus in Ireland. 
  • Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told a meeting of Fine Gael TDs that the closure of schools due to the Covid-19 outbreak may be extended into April or May.
  • 48 TDs attended a sitting of the Dáil to pass emergency laws to help fight the spread of the coronavirus and impact of job losses.
  • The North has confirmed its first death from the coronavirus and reported 9 new cases of Covid-19 bringing the total there to 77. 
  • Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has been self-isolating for the past week since returning home from visiting family abroad.
  • The Government is set to announce a temporary ban on evictions for an initial period of three months but this may be extended depending on how long the Covid-19 crisis lasts.
  • Credit-servicing funds and non-bank mortgage lenders agreed to allow a break on mortgage repayments for up to three months and to defer court proceedings for three months.
  • The Department of Education has announced the cancellation of the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert orals and practical exams.
  • Health officials have for the first time revealed a breakdown of where Covid-19 has struck in Ireland so far, and details about the age and gender of those affected.
  • The master of the National Maternity Hospital has confirmed that a patient at the facility has tested positive for Covid-19, but said pregnancy itself is not a risk factor for the virus.
  • The HSE has said it has seen 40,000 people apply to work for the health service in the two days since a recruitment drive was launched.
  • DUP leader Arlene Foster has said that a decision to close schools in the North from next week was not directed by Westminster. 
  • It is understood that supports for renters will not come in the form of access to the Housing Assistance Payment scheme, but from another form of rent assistance.
  • Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy will table legislation to protect renters during the crisis next week, it has been confirmed.
  • The HSE has confirmed that parking charges for staff in hospitals and healthcare facilities are to be immediately suspended for the duration of the Covid-19 coronavirus emergency. 
  • Pregnant women who contract Covid-19 have been asked not to attend the National Maternity Hospital unless they are in need of urgent medical or obstetric care.
  • RTÉ reports that the Department of Foreign Affairs has urged all Irish tourists in Spain to travel home by this Saturday.

In international coronavirus news:

  • Italy has overtaken China as the country with the most coronavirus-related deaths, registering 3,405 dead.
  • Italy’s prime minister has announced that the ongoing lockdown in the country will be extended beyond 3 April.
  • The UK Prime Minister said the first British patient had been put in a randomised trial for a treatment for coronavirus. Boris Johnson said the tide could be turned in the coronavirus fight within the next 12 weeks.
  • US President Donald Trump said his government is fast-tracking the anti-malarial drug chloroquine for use as a treatment against the new coronavirus.
  • China has recorded no new domestic infections of coronavirus for the first time, although it has reported 34 imported cases.
  • The NHS in the UK said that 29 more people diagnosed with Covid-19 have died bringing the total number of deaths in England from the virus to 128. 
  • The European Central Bank has announced a €750-billion scheme to purchase government and corporate bonds to contain the economic damage from the virus.
  • Australia has announced a ban on entry for non-residents from 9.00 pm tomorrow evening.
  • Twitter has announced that it will mark as harmful and delete posts which contain fake treatments for Covid-19 or deny expert guidance.
  • The EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has revealed that he has the virus.
  • Prince Albert of Monaco has also tested positive for coronavirus.
  • UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said there are no plans to close London’s transport network or place restrictions on anyone travelling in or out of the city.

Additional reporting by Conal Thomas 

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
97 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Maurice Danaher
    Favourite Maurice Danaher
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:28 PM

    Current national debt is circa €190B. Is Noonan giving up on getting the ECB to finance the Bank debt and get it deducted from the €190B. This was one of FG’s election promises. The real national debt figure is probably close to €500B if we were to accrue all PRSI pension liabilities. Yesterday’s article in the Sunday Times is frightening on this.

    112
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Winston Teardrops
    Favourite Winston Teardrops
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:33 PM

    Why would they include future liabilities? At that rate you could bring future expected revenue into the equation!

    61
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emily Elephant
    Favourite Emily Elephant
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:40 PM

    Because as from 2017, we have to account for unfunded liabilities to give a true picture of national debt. Just as companies have had to do for years. There’s no real difference between a bond you have to repay and a pension you’re committed to paying, except in accounting terms.

    51
    See 11 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Maurice Danaher
    Favourite Maurice Danaher
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:01 PM

    Well said. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kate Ellen Egan
    Favourite Kate Ellen Egan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:04 PM

    Where will the money to fund these early repayments come from ? I know it’s a stupid question but does anyone know the answer ?

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Robin Tobin
    Favourite Robin Tobin
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:11 PM

    Maurice the minister is doing lip service for the next election. Europe is in receivership and has told Noonan no to what you have noted. It would be nice but our politician didn’t talk hard they were the good boys in the class. So Europe expects them to keep paying.

    28
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alien8
    Favourite Alien8
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:15 PM

    They will be coming from 15 year loans/bond issues so the banks will be lending this money to repay them back early.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute VoiceOfVanguard
    Favourite VoiceOfVanguard
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:23 PM

    Wait ’til Ireland doesn’t get the retroactive bank recapitalization.

    And when – not if – new international corporate tax rules take effect from 2016 (OECD), at least €50 billion, or half the annual value of services exports will be vapourized.

    Plus, some multi-nationals have also said they will leave when that happens i.e. when they have to start paying a lot more corporation tax back home on top of high wages in Ireland.

    Hold on to your tin hats.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:28 PM

    Emily
    Perhaps now the penny might drop when we consider the point John Bruton was making when discussing such liabilities recently.!
    He was massively abused on this site when his opinion about defaulting by the State on pensions etc when the alternative was bankruptcy .
    How quickly we shoot the messenger in Ireland rather than trying to deal with realities.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SeanieRyan
    Favourite SeanieRyan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:14 PM

    Still think that a debt deal will have to be done.

    The EU live in a fantasy world where real economic reality is denied and put on long finger.

    They blew their chance to resolve the Euro crisis.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ben Gunn
    Favourite Ben Gunn
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:32 PM

    That would apply to unfunded civil service pensions but not to PRSI pensions. That liability is subject to year by year legislation and, in theory, could be reduced or abolished by a new Finance Act. It won’t happen of course, but the possibilty means that it is not a reckonable long term debt.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Brady
    Favourite Stephen Brady
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:47 PM

    What do you mean give up, they didn’t even ask for feck sake

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kerry Blake
    Favourite Kerry Blake
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:48 PM

    ohhh I feel another seismic shift coming on….

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Huggy Bear
    Favourite Huggy Bear
    Report
    Sep 8th 2014, 9:12 AM

    Property tax
    Water charges
    USC
    ….any if these terms familiar to you????

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute IrishGravyTrain
    Favourite IrishGravyTrain
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:21 PM

    No financial penalty for paying off loans early. Ha ha. We should be getting a discount for paying early.

    107
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Winston Teardrops
    Favourite Winston Teardrops
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:30 PM

    Don’t get into finance. I can tell by this one comment that it’s not for you.

    75
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tony Skillington
    Favourite Tony Skillington
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:51 PM

    We should never have had them in the first place…ffs

    48
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Peter King
    Favourite Peter King
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:23 PM

    Getting a bit annoyed with this sycophantic attitude the government has with Europe.

    77
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Deegan
    Favourite John Deegan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:38 PM

    What, you feel no surge of patriotic pride when our minister begs the faceless financiers to kindly allow us to give us a big ball of cash?

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Deegan
    Favourite John Deegan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:39 PM

    * you a big ball of cash *

    7
    See 8 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mike O Neill
    Favourite Mike O Neill
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:00 PM
    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:39 PM

    Peter.
    What a brain and what a genius. Please tell us how yo can save the State a cool three hundred and seventy five million Euro a year as proposed by Minister Noonan so that we don’t have to politely ask our creditors for agreement to vary the terms of our Bailout.
    You must be a whizz with figures and I envy the confidence with which you stride across these pages.
    I showed your comments to a colleague and I could see straight away that he misunderstands you. In tact what he said about you couldn’t be printed here but all great men Peter suffer from such slingshots!

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Mc
    Favourite Paul Mc
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:09 PM

    @Rodgers as per usual your wisdom knows no bounds you and your comments are wasted on the journal.
    Its time you took up your true vocation and that in my humble oppinion is that of chief Fine Gael ass wipe.

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:22 PM

    Paul
    Thanks! Your opinion in your own words is indeed humble and it is quite clear that you never aspired beyond that though instinct probably told you that there was enough material in you to heft a Sinn Fein shovel but you would need to be told what to do after that.
    The world needs simple folk Paul and at least you have recognised that!

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Grehan
    Favourite Stephen Grehan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:37 PM

    Well said Paul Mc. When Rodgers is in the company of Edna its like a scene from the film The Human Centipede.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thomas Newell
    Favourite Thomas Newell
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:09 PM

    hows life as the chief arse kisser and male cheer leader to enda and his brigade richard cos clearly you are one of them patriots big nose hogan was on about

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kerry Blake
    Favourite Kerry Blake
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:54 PM

    So Richard hows that seismic shift of Enda the statesman performing these days?

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 12:01 AM

    Kerry
    Whaaaaaaaaat?

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute E=MC2
    Favourite E=MC2
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:58 PM

    When the cost of Noonan’s very generous minster’s pension to which he does not contribute a cent is added to the debt it could be the last straw that breaks the taxpayer’s back.

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Phillip Hogan
    Favourite Phillip Hogan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:23 PM

    Wow, we are so lucky.

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alien8
    Favourite Alien8
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:53 PM

    Looking at the returns, it is all rosy for Noonan – revenue’s new mantra is to suck every last penny of savings and profit out of small business and their employees and to present it as a gift to some unelected ex-politicians and expect a pat on his obnoxious head.

    “Look what I brought you – someone else’s debt, maybe I’ve ruined a few small businesses and taxed earnings and savings from Irish people to the hilt, but as long as we’re all happy let’s make this look like good news to the ‘media’ – you’ll print it like that, you property funded news website”…

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ger Ryan
    Favourite Ger Ryan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 7:29 PM

    At the end of the 1st 1/4 2008 this country was heading towards a deficit of 22bn euros. In d last 5 yrs we have undertaken a huge social experimenr in how to balance d books without strikes/riots etc and we have nearly made it. There is huge credit due to fg and lab and enormous credit due to d dept of finance and public expenditure.

    19
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Brady
    Favourite Stephen Brady
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:52 PM

    Why should lab and fg get any credit. Ff told them what to do before they got booted out.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Colin Mccormack
    Favourite Colin Mccormack
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 3:53 AM

    How is it any credit to them, it’s a credit to the irish people not the politicians. The politicians didn’t stop riots they hid away in Leinster house and quietly stripped us of our pride and dignity and left most of us demoralised and close to bankruptcy. Suicides are through the roof, let’s see these magnificent politicians of yours deal with that elephant in the roof. Crime.? It’s bandit country in ireland again, those shower deserve no credit for anything.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ger Ryan
    Favourite Ger Ryan
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 7:22 AM

    The simple fact if the matter is that this country of 4.5million people withdrew over 16bn from circulation over the past 5 years. Politicans put their names forward as spokespeople for that. You didnt. You come on forums and talk abt how bad it is. Pokiticans arent stupid or even greedy anymore. They all know the suicide numbers, the high taxes, the unemployment but they still put their names forward. You didnt. it is easier spew vitriol from d sidelines

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan O'connor
    Favourite Alan O'connor
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:06 PM

    More bad news for the Shinners. Tax take up. Ahead of forecast.

    Where are the Shinners anyway?

    I suppose it’s hard for them to spin positives into negatives. Especially when there’s an election coming up. Just doesn’t appeal to voters.

    But it’s all they have.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thomas Newell
    Favourite Thomas Newell
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:13 PM

    so anyone that has a different opinion to them muppets in power are shinners………explains the mental state of the cheerleaders for the likes of the FG/LB/FF crowd on hear…..deluded one trick ponies who believe anything that comes out of the lot in the dail

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Hartigan
    Favourite John Hartigan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:08 PM

    Election spew has started

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nosmo King
    Favourite Nosmo King
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:11 PM

    ” Noonan ” and ” charm ” in the same sentence !! . It is just so wrong, Jack Horgan-Jones. Just so, so wrong.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute VinHeffer89
    Favourite VinHeffer89
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:05 PM

    Will Mr Noonan be dancing suggestively for Mario Draghi et al as well?

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Susan Adair Farrelly
    Favourite Susan Adair Farrelly
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:54 PM

    Charm?? God help Europe…

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jarlath Murphy
    Favourite Jarlath Murphy
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:41 PM

    Jam?………………………………..
    ‘…………………………?…………….
    ……..?………………………………….

    NEVER!

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute DM
    Favourite DM
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:16 PM

    Why was my two comments deleted?

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brehon Law
    Favourite Brehon Law
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 8:16 AM

    Just in time for the general election!

    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds