The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has described the record 612 patients on trolleys as “entirely predictable” and warned it could worsen.

There has been a spike in flu-like symptoms around the country.

Anabolic steroids, increasingly popular among young males to obtain a pumped-up physique, accounted for more than half of the 60,000 counterfeit units of medicine seized in a single week by Irish enforcement agencies in partnership with the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA).

Some of Ireland’s greatest writers who left its shores by sea were today used to attract holidaymakers on to the waves.