Over 15,000 people across the country have been vaccinated against Covid 19 so far

The HSE says its target is to administer 35 thousand doses by the end of this week

Its CEO Paul Reid says an agreement to use private hospitals is being finalised and that he expects all of them to sign up urgently. 

However he described the current situation with Covid 19 as quite bleak. 

"We're working to deal with an extraordinary national crisis at the moment. In the last 24 hours, we've reached a milestone that has to be a call to arms to the public to everybody to support the health service in the coming weeks and months. We now have 1,022 people being treated in hospitals with COVID and as of mid morning this morning, there are now 95 people in ICU"