A further 403 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, however no new deaths have been reported.

Of the 403 new cases, 174 occurred in Dublin, 34 in Meath, 20 in Kildare, 18 in Mayo and 16 in Cork. This brings the total number of cases in the Republic to 243,911.

As of 8am on Monday, there were 183 people with COVID-19 in hospital, 50 of whom were in ICU. There had been seen additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of April 17, over 1.2 million doses of the vaccine had been administered. Almost 352,000 people have received both of their two doses.

According to the deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, NPHET is seeing "an ongoing improving situation in relation to incidence and the numbers of people in hospital".

"The number of people in critical care has stabilised at about 50 and we are seeing about two new admissions on average to intensive care each day. The five-day moving average of 364 cases per day is the lowest it's been for some months," he commented.

Meanwhile, Dr Glynn said that the National Immunisation Advisory Committee and NPHET are waiting for a statement about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is due this week from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), before deciding if the interval between current doses of the other vaccines is to be extended.