Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said it is impossible to say if there could be a lockdown in the future.

The Taoiseach has announced fresh restrictions as Covid-19 infection rates surge across the country.

There are currently no plans to compensate people "solely for being boarded out", but many who had already spent time in a mother-and-baby home will qualify for redress, Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman has said.

The High Court will this morning begin hearing a challenge aimed at quashing parts of the final report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation.

Eleven years after a New Zealand mine disaster claimed 29 lives, investigators said they had found the remains of at least two of the victims but were unlikely to launch a recovery operation.

At least one person has died in torrential rains that trapped motorists in mudslides, forced thousands to evacuate their homes and cut off Vancouver from the rest of Canada.

Health officials in Northern Ireland have warned Covid passports may not be enough to stop hospitals being overwhelmed and "more severe restrictions" may need to be considered next month.

British Brexit minister David Frost has said that his government's preference is to strike a deal to improve post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland and that agreement can be reached by Christmas.

Poland's defence minister has warned that the crisis on the Belarusian border could last for months, saying migrants had been "attacking the Polish border" again during the night.

The Cambridge Dictionary has revealed its word of the year for 2021 as "perseverance", with editors crediting global interest in NASA's mission to Mars.

Schools in New Delhi have been shut until further notice, and the government urged people to work from home and banned non-essential trucks from entering the Indian capital due to dangerous levels of air pollution.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a parliamentary grilling today over charges of sleaze within his Conservative party and lacklustre leadership at the COP26 climate summit.

Seven Azerbaijani troops have been killed in border clashes with Armenia near the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, officials in Baku said this morning.

New York City will allow crowds into Times Square on New Year's Eve to ring in 2022, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced, after the pandemic muted last year's celebrations.

Christy Moore has won a lifetime achievement award at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards.

Sports equipment retailer Decathlon has said it will no longer sell canoes in the north of France to prevent migrants from attempting to use them to cross to England.

The Taoiseach has said this is the fourth surge of Covid infections experienced by the country as the Government announced updated restrictions.

There was some inevitability about today's Government announcements on fresh measures to halt the surge in Covid-19 cases.

Neither the growth in case numbers nor the associated warnings from officials have caused a collective change in behaviour, explains Mark Coughlan. Where do we go from here?

Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman said a new financial redress scheme for the survivors of mother-and-baby homes will be the largest in the history of the State in terms of the number of beneficiaries.