A further 79 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported, as well as 1,414 new cases of the virus.

This brings the total number of deaths here to 3,292 and the total number of cases to 195,303.

Among the 79 deaths, the median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 56-98 years.

Of the 1,414 cases, 608 occurred in Dublin, 105 in Cork, 96 in Galway, 65 in Meath and 59 in Donegal.

As of 2pm on Saturday, there were, 1,492 people with confirmed COVID-19 in hospital, of which 211 were in ICU. There had been an additional 55 hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

The Department of Health's chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, pointed out that there have now been over 1,000 deaths and 100,000 cases of the virus in January alone.

"We have reported more cases in one month than we experienced throughout 2020. This shows just how quickly this disease can spread and how much it can impact public health," he commented.

However, he also said that the efforts of people in Ireland to suppress the virus in recent weeks "has seen us reduce the incidence of the disease very rapidly compared to most countries in Europe".

But Dr Holohan also warned that despite the recent, significant decrease in cases, "there remains a level of infection in the population which is double that seen at the peak of incidence last October".

"The next few weeks need to see us maintain compliance with all of the measures that are in place so that we can get to levels of the disease that are as low as possible," he said.

More information on the latest figures in relation to COVID-19, including the number of people vaccinated so far, is available here.