Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway has the third highest number of claimants for the pandemic unemployment payment this week.

Over 24,900 people in the city and county are to receive the State support this week.

Dublin is the county with the highest number receiving PUP this week with over 146,500 claimants, followed by Cork with over 47 thousand.

Meanwhile, over 8,200 people in Galway have been medically certified for the COVID-19 related enhanced illness benefit.

This week, the Department of Social Protection has issued weekly payments valued at over €139 million to those in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment.

Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway City Council has agreed to borrow €3.5 million for a loan scheme for first time buyers.

The total allocation will go towards the provision of the 2021 Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan scheme for city residents.

At this week’s Local Authority meeting, councillors agreed unanimously to borrow €3.5 million from Government for the 2021 Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan scheme.

The scheme is only available to first time buyers who have already had two loan applications rejected by commercial lending institutes.

The income of a single applicant must not exceed €50,000 while the combined income of joint applicants must not be over €75,000.

Loans of up to 90% are available on properties up to €320,000 – with the maximum interest rate is set at just under 3%.

Director of Services for Housing Dermot Mahon told the meeting that since the scheme started in 2018, the City Council has financed 35 loan approvals at a total cost of just under €5.2 million.

Galway Bay fm newsroom – There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today.

There has been a total of 4,422 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Sunday 7th March, the HPSC has been notified of 437 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 223,651* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 216 are men / 218 are women
• 71% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 34 years old
• 184 in Dublin, 31 in Limerick, 26 in Donegal, 20 in Galway, 18 in Offaly and the remaining 158 cases are spread across all other counties**.

As of 8am today, 418 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 103 are in ICU. 20 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of March 5^th, 513,322 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

• 363,601 people have received their first dose
• 149,721 people have received their second dose

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said; “Our Amárach research data shows compliance with the key public health measures remain very high; washing hands regularly (93%), using hand sanitiser (95%), social distancing while in a queue (93%).

“While levels of anxiety (36%) and boredom (38%) are understandably high, it is encouraging to see that a sense of hope continues to rise across the population with 48% of people reporting that they feel the worst of the pandemic is behind us.

“This hope is justified in the context of the continued improvement in the key indicators of the disease and with the ongoing rollout of the vaccination programme over the coming weeks. However, it is vital that this hope does not give way to complacency; across Europe countries are seeing a deteriorating picture and our own disease incidence remains high – we must do all we can to continue to suppress this virus and to ensure that as many people as possible get to benefit from vaccination over the coming months. Keep your guard up and hold firm.”

Dr. Cliona Murphy, Chair of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said; “We recommend that everyone of reproductive age should take the COVID-19 vaccine as it becomes available. We are aware of misinformation about risks associated with taking COVID-19 vaccines and an impact on fertility. There is no evidence that taking any of the COVID-19 vaccines affects a woman’s future ability to conceive, or to continue a pregnancy.”

ENDS//

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 5 confirmed cases. The figure of 223,651 confirmed cases reflects this.

**County data should be considered provisional as the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting System (CIDR) is a dynamic system and case details are continually being validated and updated.

Today’s cases, 5-day moving average of new cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 07 March 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

~The 5-day moving average of the number of new cases provides an appropriate indicator of current daily case numbers within a county. It takes account of any validation of cases for previous days and smooths out daily/weekend fluctuations in case numbers.

• 7-day incidence 71.2
• 5-day moving average 495