The spread of the Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc with sport, with Six Nations and Guinness PRO14 competitions once more affected.

From tomorrow morning, all lectures will be delivered online instead of in a lecture hall but tutorials, seminars and laboratory practicals will continue to be given in their current format.

Ryanair has announced that they will suspend all flights to, from and within Italy.

Panic over the Covid-19 fallout gripped global stock markets yesterday in the worst sell-off since the financial crisis a decade ago, while oil prices slumped in their worst drop since the Gulf War almost 30 years ago.

Irish economic growth will grind to a halt and unemployment will creep above 5% this year under Italy-style quarantines to control the Covid-19 outbreak here, the Economic and Social Research Institute has projected in new forecasts.

Ryanair has announced further cuts to their flights to/from and within Italy due to the continued spread of coronavirus.

The Guinness PRO14 fixtures were postponed to "provide some degree of certainty in an evolving situation."

An employee of the European Defence Agency tested positive after returning from Italy.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

Consumers who cancel or rebook flights because of the Covid-19 outbreak could find themselves out of pocket unless there is a change in advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

An engineering expert who helped advise the Italian government on flood defences in Venice insists that the river Lee dams can protect Cork from river flooding without the need for "high walls".

The European Commission told five countries, including Italy and France, that their draft budgets for 2020 risk breaching the eurozone’s fiscal rules.

Italy wants France and Spain to support its campaign to change the EU’s fiscal rules and focus them more on growth in the face of a regional and global economic slowdown, Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said in an interview.

The Italian government looks sets to another collision course with the European Union as the commission seemed set to impose sanctions on the country over its budget deficit, sending Italian bond yields sharply higher.

The Italian government is blocking plans by former White House adviser Steve Bannon to set up an academy for future populist political leaders in a medieval monastery in the mountains outside of Rome.

Low interest rates are justified by economic conditions in the eurozone and their impact on banks’ profitability should not be exaggerated, says ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau.

While last week's news that Italy’s economy had returned to growth in the first quarter of the year will certainly have been welcomed like the proverbial flowers of Spring across the EU, it is, for now at least, little more than a band-aid upon the towering spectre of its massive public debt.

At the start of 2018, financial markets were brimming with confidence. The previous year had been a cake-walk for equities, with volatility at record lows and valuations rising steadily.

The second breakthrough in just over a week in the Brexit talks process pushed sterling higher and weighed on shares in London that rely on a weak British currency.

AIB fared relatively better than its main rival Bank of Ireland in so-called stress tests conducted on large European banks by regulators, but the outlook for their shares will likely remain clouded for some time.

As usual Ireland’s presidential election was a fractious affair, which demonstrates just how worked up and vitriolic people can become in relation to an issue that is of trivial significance, at best, writes Jim Power.

The internal squabbles of the EU seem petty in comparison with the calamities in the countries fled by many of the migrants who try to get to Europe.

The country’s eurosceptics on the left and right — anti-austerity and anti-immigration, respectively — have united in government and may yet succeed in upending the European project, says Mark Leonard.

Italian assets were pummeled again yesterday on mounting concern over the populist coalition’s fiscal plans, with the moves rippling across European debt markets.

The Italian economy has under-performed for years. Jean Pisani-Ferry looks at the reasons why and asks how the Italian government can turn things around.

The rise of pro-Putin parties in the recent Italian elections has again underlined how American leverage has waned in comparison, writes John Lloyd.

Italy has long prided itself for its quality of life and with good reason. The country may be only just recovering from a long economic crisis, but its citizens are healthier and live longer than those of most other countries in the world. It is, perhaps, no coincidence then that the Italian government is pioneering the use of welfare indicators in its budget process.

Police in Sicily say 15 firefighters are suspected of setting blazes that they were then called to extinguish.

Ryanair has confirmed it has made an indicative takeover offer for struggling Italian airline Alitalia, saying the potential long-haul passenger feed opportunities make the deal “interesting”.

The plan to restructure struggling bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena will provide "a credible future" for the institution while ensuring stability to the Italian banking sector, the country's finance minister has said.

Two US private equity funds have quit talks to buy a mountain of bad loans from ailing Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena, dealing a blow to plans to secure a state bailout for the bank.

Despite elections in senior member states, the short-term prognosis for the currency union is good, but long-term worries remain, writes Daniel Gros.

The Italian government is bailing out Monte dei Paschi di Siena after Italy's third-largest bank failed to raise the €5bn needed to stay afloat.

The Italian president's office says that foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni has formed a new government.

Rooting for loose change on the dashboard at a toll plaza is an immediate reminder of the infrastructure cost of the roads and bridges we drive on.

Irish bank shares posted gains despite continuing fears about the health of Italian lenders and a cautionary report from Fitch Ratings on the outlook for Irish lenders after Brexit.

Political risk has come to the fore in recent times, creating a lot of volatility and uncertainty in financial markets.

The ECB sees no risk of a eurozone banking crisis despite some “individual cases” of lenders in trouble, senior supervisor Ignazio Angeloni said yesterday.

Strong aftershocks have damaged two key access roads into quake-struck Amatrice, threatening to isolate the tiny Italian hilltop town as hopes fade that firefighters will find any more survivors from the earthquake that killed at least 278 people.

Specialist Italian pension funds will consider a government request to pour money into a bank bailout fund, days before European stress tests are expected to show the country’s third-largest lender is in need of urgent capital.