Ireland: Covid-19 vaccine registration opens for 59-year-olds

Registration for Covid-19 vaccinations for people aged in their 50s is open from today.

Those aged 59 are the first to be invited to register on the Health Service Executive's online portal.

Over the next 10 days, people aged 50 to 59 can register.

The HSE said a PPSN, Eircode, mobile number and email address is needed to register on its vaccine.hse.ie portal.

Following a review of the overall programme, the HSE has advised that it should continue immunising older people first, and that there should be no break in the age-based vaccination plan.

It means that younger people will not be vaccinated earlier than planned and vaccinating different age groups in parallel is not envisaged at this point.

The plan would allow the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines being used in those under 50, in certain circumstances, if no other vaccine was available.

The HSE's revised plan was submitted to the Department of Health yesterday evening and is expected to be discussed at Cabinet later today.

It said it expects to vaccinate between 220,000 and 240,000 people this week.

Meanwhile, there has been a rise in the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospitals.

Latest figures show there are 144 patients with the disease in hospital, compared with 129 yesterday.

40 of the patients are in intensive care, which is the same number as yesterday.

Separately, as part of the Government's plan to ease restrictions all construction activity restarted this morning along with other outdoor work, such as window cleaning or maintenance.

Construction workers resumed work on residential, early-learning and childcare sites on 12 April.