LAST UPDATE | 8 Feb 2021

EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. #CAVAN: Gardaí are investigating all circumstances surrounding the “unexplained deaths” of a man and a woman who were discovered at a house in Co Cavan yesterday.

2. #STUDENT NURSES: More than a hundred student nurses wrote to the Taoiseach after a Dáil motion that would have seen them paid for placements during the pandemic.

3. #VACCINATION: The HSE’s Dr Colm Henry said that first Covid-19 vaccine doses will be administered to over 70s by mid-April, and that “we will have completed all by mid-May”. 

4. #RISING RENTS: According to a Daft.ie report, rents in Dublin fell by 3.3% during 2020. In the rest of the country, rents rose by 5.4%.

5. #PLAYING POLITICS: 19 Fianna Fáil TDs – including Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Jim O’Callaghan – responded to the Irish Times to say they would not rule out holding coalition talks with Sinn Féin after the next general election.

6. #STATE PENSION: A new social welfare payment of €203 a week has been introduced for 65-year-olds who are no longer employed and aren’t entitled to the State pension.

7. #SA VARIANT: South Africa suspended the start of its AstraZeneca inoculation programme over concerns the shot does not work on the new South African variant.

8. #CROSS BORDER: People engaging in non-essential cross-border travel from the North into the Republic of Ireland can be liable to a €100 fine from today.

9. #SUPERBOWL: American football player Tom Brady sealed his place among America’s greatest sporting icons last night, winning a record seventh Super Bowl after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers routed the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9.