JUST how does a ‘caretaker’ Taoiseach get away with shutting down the country while away on foreign soil, without Cabinet approval and with no mandate to govern?

Ireland has officially moved to the delay phase of Covid-19 engagement, the Government has confirmed — a move it said could “potentially save thousands of lives”.

Ministers travelling abroad as part of scaled back St Patrick’s Day visits this year have been banned from flying first class, hiring limousines, or using hotel suites.

The government is as of yet not advising that this month's St Patrick's Day parades or other large public events be cancelled.

Fianna Fáil could win two seats in the five-seater constituency with Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher and Charlie McConalogue.

Secondary schools, colleges of further and adult education and institutes of technology are facing strike action by members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland next month.

School secretaries would be prepared to re-enter talks to resolve a long-standing pay issue if the Government demonstrates a willingness to relax its stance on the matter.

The Christian Brothers has paid the outstanding €6.37m owed to redress organisation Caranua, the fund set up to support people abused in residential institutions.

With more than half of Irish students never having sat a computer-based assessment before the OECD’s latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, students here received a “significantly and substantially” lower score on the use of digital technology in class compared to other countries.

The Taoiseach and Finance Minister have both insisted that Maria Bailey was removed from the Fine Gael election ticket in a correct and democratic manner.

Ministers have called on Fianna Fail election candidate Lorraine Clifford-Lee to apologise directly to Travellers for controversial tweets and claimed the comments were used as a “weapon”.