NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

HSE CEO Paul Reid and Anne O’Connor, Chief Operations Officer, HSE at Dr Steevens’ Hospital for the weekly HSE operational update on the response to Covid-19. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

• Health officials confirmed 400 new cases of Covid-19 and seven more deaths as NPHET warned of a “stable, potentially improving” situation. 
• A total of 10 cases of Covid-19 have been detected in mandatory hotel quarantine settings since testing began in the facilities on 26 March.
• GPs said continued shortfalls in vaccine supplies in the country mean they will not be able to ensure all over 70s receive their first jab by mid-April, as promised by Taoiseach Micheál Martin just over a week ago. 
• Ireland’s vaccine rollout hit a new milestone, with more than one million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered.
• Another night of unrest on the streets of Belfast was widely condemned by political leaders in Belfast, Dublin and London.
• March saw the highest number of cervical smear tests carried out since October 2018.
• A payroll administrator at Virgin Media Television is to face trial accused of stealing more than €870,000 from the broadcaster.
• Monaghan senior football manager Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney was suspended for 12 weeks by the county board following his team’s training breach. Gardaí are investigating the incident.
• A trip by two Irish Members of the European Parliament to visit a headquarters of a militia network in Iraq has been used in a YouTube video to promote the group. 

THE WORLD

Staff members Saba Chaudry (top) and Michael Booth make final preparations in the reading room at the London Library, in St James Square, London, ahead of its planned reopening to members on April 12th as the government eases current coronavirus restrictions. PA PA

#UNITED STATES: President Joe Biden has restored aid to the Palestinians to a tune of $235 million, drawing a rebuke by ally Israel, as he promised to press for a two-state solution.

PARTING SHOT

President Michael D Higgins has marked International Traveller and Roma Day by celebrating the culture of the Travelling community and hitting out at the discrimination it faces.  

In a video message, President Higgins takes issues with policies at a national and local level that he says has failed to address “with compassion and understanding, the needs of the Travelling community”.

“Far too many challenges remain for Travellers and Roma. The bitter fruits of a failure of State policy are manifold, where it existed,” he says. 

Submission to narrow, exclusionary, property-based, and most unrepublican populist sentiments, in far too many Local Authorities, stand as indictments on Irish society past and present. 

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