NEED TO CATCH UP? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Pictured (LtoR) Greg Love, Alasdair Reid Harry Wallace and Colin Evans from Glasgow Scotland pictured outside the Horseman Temple Bar this morning ahead of the Ireland Vs Scotland six Nations Rugby match on Saturday in the Aviva stadium, Dublin. Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• A man charged in relation to a fire that left a woman and three children hospitalised was remanded in custody.
• The death of a young girl under the age of 12 was announced following a suspected outbreak of meningitis.
• A friend of Ireland and Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding was accused of providing a “preposterous account” of events to police investigating a rape allegation.
• TV presenter Glenda Gilson’s parents lost their home to Shoreline Residential DAC.
• A former RTÉ producer who was caught by a paedophile-hunting vigilante group in England after grooming a fictitious girl he believed was just 13 years old was jailed for 18 months.
• Aaron Brady, who is accused of the capital murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe in a shooting in 2013, will face trial on indictment, it was announced.
• Health Minister Simon Harris said proposals are being drawn up to consider the roll out of free contraception.
• The Grafton Street branch of PTSB was occupied by protesters voicing their opposition to the proposed sale of distressed mortgages to vulture funds.
• Bars have been given the go-ahead to open on Good Friday.
• A review of the policing during the 2014 Jobstown protest found that gardaí should have anticipated an outburst of public disorder at that time.
• The role of a new Garda Commissioner was advertised on publicjobs.ie.
• The Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said former Irish President Mary McAleese’s criticism of the Catholic Church was “brutally stark”.
• There were 72,643 applications to the CAO by 1 February – a decrease of 3,443 applicants on the previous year, it was announced.

WORLD

A convoy of police and military vehicles leave Salisbury District Hospital as a police car is taken away as troops have been deployed to help police probing the nerve agent poisoning of spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. PA Wire / PA Images PA Wire / PA Images / PA Images

#SENTENCED: Martin Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors in two failed hedge funds.

#ENGLAND: The military were called in to help in an investigation into a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent residing in Britain.

#DIPLOMACY: US president Donald Trump agreed to a historic first meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

PARTING SHOT

Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae has said that leprechauns don’t exist. On the back of this revelation, DailyEdge looked into some of his more memorable quotes delivered in his short time in office. (Via DailyEdge)