14 mins ago
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly arriving now, he tells reporters that he’ll remain nervous over the next month as NPHET says June’s easing is contingent on things staying stable through May.
24 mins ago
Ministers were snapped arriving at Government Buildings ahead of the Cabinet meeting, looking pretty happy.
Yes, Varadkar is wearing a face mask here but he was quite upbeat when talking about today’s announcement during Leaders’ Questions, saying it was a “day of hope”.
36 mins ago
Thanks, Sean!
Our political correspondent Christina Finn is outside government buildings now with Cabinet kicking off in the new few minutes.
You can follow her below for all the action.
And we’re back again…
Cabinet meeting to consider and sign off on the easing restrictions to begin shortly pic.twitter.com/9IU9Q5aNkN
— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) April 29, 2021
1:56PM
And that’s me for now. I leave you in the capable hands of Adam Daly for the next while.
All yours, Adam!
1:30PM
We’re expecting Cabinet to kick off at around 2.30pm.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Alan Kelly has been telling the Dáil that a “huge number” of people within the 60 to 69 age cohort haven’t booked a vaccine appointment yet.
He said: ““I am concerned that 220,000 people in the 60 to 69 group haven’t registered.
“How are we going to ensure that they do register for vaccines? That’s a huge number.
“There is obviously a quantity of people who are not going to register for some reason.
“We need to do something about it.”
1:17PM
Reid says the HSE is examining advice from NIAC and says the revised 27th version of the vaccine rollout plan will be ready early next week.
The plan will be based on sequencing and progressing down through the ages.
“We don’t want to have a situation where we have vaccines left but not administered,” he says.
On schools, Reid says good progress is being made and that mixing in school is in a “controlled environment”. He says if a child has symptoms, parents shouldn’t send them to school.
He finishes with the message “let’s…
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