The HSE said it is still planning to administer between 250,000 and 270,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses next week between despite the ransomware cyber-attack on its IT systems launched yesterday.

Efforts will continue today to assess the impact of the ransomware attack on the Health Service Executive, healthcare facilities and services here.

Getting that first dose felt like a big moment. I was allocated an mRNA vaccine, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which means a second dose after 28 days.

A family of 10 were killed in the early hours of this morning in an Israeli air strike on the western Gaza Strip, medics in the region said, as the latest upsurge in violence in the Middle East continued for a fifth night.

Brexit means Scotland is out of the EU. But from the regional office which the Scottish government retains in Brussels, it is hard not to detect the embers of a hope, if not expectation, that it might one day return, writes Tony Connelly.

The World Health Organization has issued a grim warning that the second year of Covid-19 was set to be "far more deadly", as Japan extended a state of emergency amid growing calls for the Olympics to be scrapped.

China's probe to Mars touched down on the Red Planet early today to deploy its Zhurong rover, state media reported, a triumph for Beijing's increasingly bold space ambitions and a history-making feat for a nation on its first-ever Martian mission.

US Republicans have elected congresswoman Elise Stefanik, an outspoken defender of Donald Trump, as their new House conference chair, as the party scrambles to unify amid an explosive debate about its direction.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said it will "take some days" to assess the impact of the cyber attack on the Health Service Executive's IT system.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination programme, to try to contain a fast-spreading variant first identified in India that could knock a reopening of the economy off track.

The cyber attack on HSE systems is a timely reminder of how vulnerable organisations and individuals are, writes Will Goodbody.

The Department of Health has been notified of four further deaths associated with Covid-19. There have also been 425 additional confirmed cases.

Child and family agency Tusla has said its IT systems are not operating as a result of today's cyber attack on the Health Service Executive.

HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry has said it will take "a number of days" before the HSE's computer systems are back up and running.

Edwin Poots has been named as the new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

The Data Protection Commissioner can proceed with an inquiry that could lead to a ban on Facebook's data transfers from the European Union to the United States, the High Court has ruled.

Two men have been arrested following the seizure of weapons, including imitation firearms, and €40,000 of suspected cannabis in Co Clare.

Two journalists have asked the High Court for orders requiring social media giant Twitter to provide them with information about account holders they allege have defamed them.

School secretaries and caretakers campaigning for better pay, pensions and job security will have to wait till 21 May for the Government to complete a "data gathering exercise" aimed at costing their claim.

A High Court judge has overturned planning permission for more than 300 apartments at Dublin's Docklands and criticised An Bord Pleanála for what he described as a "certain laxity" in its examination of the developer's documents.