This morning.

Garda HQ, Phoenix Park, Dublin.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris speaks on the measures being put in place by An Garda Síochána to maximise its ‘operational effectiveness’.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has written to a number of senior officers who are due to retire in the next few weeks asking them to stay on in the national interest.

Among those asked to remain working in the force is the Assistant Commissioner in charge of policing Dublin, Pat Leahy. He was due to retire at the end of this month. It is understood he has agreed to remain in his post.

Over 300 students from the Garda College Templemore are to be attested as gardaí next week and allocated to garda stations all over the country….

Senior gardaí asked to delay retirement ‘in national interest’ over Covid-19 (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

Musician and singer Bob Glynn

Alexis Cronin (brother of the ‘sheet‘s Olga), writez:

My wife [Evanna Lyons] and I were out for a few drinks in Dublin city last week when we came across Bob Glynn.

He’s a musician who was busking and who has truly amazing vocals.

He got chatting to us as Evanna and I enjoyed his session so much. In the end, we had a pint together and he told us he gives away the money he gets from busking to homeless people in Dublin and buys pastries for heroin addicts.

He was such a genuine guy and a refreshing story for Broadsheet in the midst of Corona-gate.

He also gave me the idea to make a guitar out of recycled plastic. I am hoping to have it ready for him by end of this month.

Mmf.

Bob Glynn

Previously: Plastic Soul

Soldiers of the Irish Army section of the Defence Forces on training excercise on the Curragh Plains, County Kildare last year

This morning

Irish Mirror journalist Saoirse McGarrigle predicts a dystopian future starting this Monday at 8am.

We would like to remind the armed forces that as a trusted news website we can be helpful in rounding up others.

Thanks Conor

Eamonn Farrell/Rollingnews

UPDATE:

Coronavirus: Defence Forces personnel told to report to barracks (Ronan McGreevy, The Irish Times)

UDPATE:

 

Hueston Station, Dublin this morning

This morning.

Minister for Health Simon Harris spoke to Bryan Dobson  on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland.

It followed a decision of the National Health Emergency Team last night, that people returning from Spain and Italy will be given leaflets at Irish airports in which they’ll be encouraged to restrict their movements for the next two weeks, specifically to not go to work and to lessen their social contacts.

In regards to people returning from Cheltenham, Mr Harris said they will get information about symptoms.

The Health Minister also said:

“We’re more likely to get this virus in our home from bad practice in terms of hand hygiene and the like, so do please follow the health advice. You have a really important role to play.”

Of the closures announced yesterday, he said:

“They’re in place now until the 29th of March, they’ll be reviewed right through the process and reviewed again on the 29th of March. If they need to be extended they will be but we need see. We’ve taken some very, very significant measures that are asking people in our country to alter their behaviour quite significantly for the next fortnight. We’ll only obviously continue those measures if it’s absolutely necessary and if they’re proving to have a benefit.

“So at this stage it’s too early to say [if they closures be extended for a longer period of time].”

“….It is an absolutely reality that this is something that could be with us for many, many months and we have to be conscious when we’re taking those measures as well, that measures we take have to be sustainable. We have to try to keep our country going, not to put our country into lockdown, we need people to go to work today and we need people to bake the bread and supply our supermarkets and we need our healthcare professionals to get to work.

“And we need to look after each other as well. So all of the measures we’re taking have to be seen through that prism.

“This is not a storm that goes away after a couple of days. This is asking people to alter our behaviour and change our lives for quite a period of time ahead.”

He also said:

“We have a suite of measures but we have to implement them at the right time and I think what we’ve now shown is a willingness to do that, to listen and to act quickly and decisively and we’ll continue to do that.

“Obviously all of the measures that have been put in place could be scaled up, if the need arose so we have banned gatherings indoors of 100 people, outdoors of 500 people, there’s obviously potential to do that,

“But what we won’t be doing is kind of strongman, macho politics movements where you’re looking like you’re doing something for he sake of doing something. We’ll be following the science here, we’ll be following the doctors’ advice, we’ll be listening to the chief medical officer and we’ll be acting.”

“…It’s very much a marathon not a sprint. Our country is not in lockdown. This is still, the same great country it was yesterday. We’re just asking everybody to live their lives a little bit differently so that we can try and make a real national collective effort.”

Listen back in full here

Last night.

Conan on TBS.

Team Coco writes;

100% Irish Conan can’t believe that [not-fully Irish actor and comedian] Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation) gets to be the new spokesperson for Guinness….

Team Coco

Thanks Dina

Meanwhile…

Hic.

One of Nick’s Guinness spots for St Patrick’s Day 2020 currently on US telly.

From left: Director of Health Protection Survaillance center Dr John Cuddihy, HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry, Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health; and Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health,

This morning.

Paul Cullen, in The Irish Times, reports:

“Unprecedented restrictions on public life aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus could remain in force for months, public health doctors have indicated after the number of cases jumped by 63 per cent in a single day.

..It is likely the school closures could extend to five weeks, until the end of the Easter holidays.

Other measures such as visitor restrictions at hospitals, nursing homes and prisons, and a ban on mass gatherings, as well as the closures are due to be reviewed before the end of the month.

However, they may have to remain in place “for an extended period of time” beyond March 29th, chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said last night. He declined to specify how much longer the measures might have to apply.

…Ireland is “exactly 14 days behind Italy” in terms of the rise in coronavirus cases, two Irish doctors writing in the British Medical Journal warned on Thursday.”

Coronavirus: Ireland’s restrictions could remain in force for months, doctors warn (Paul Cullen, The Irish Times)

Yesterday: Ireland Is Closed Until March 29 [Updated]

Broadsheet.ie