Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster has expressed hope the Stormont Executive will reach an agreed position on new Covid-19 restrictions for the region.
Ms Foster's comments come amid deadlock within the administration on whether to extend, amend or relax the current four-week circuit-break measures, which expire at midnight on Thursday.
Ministers are due to meet again later today after discussions yesterday failed to secure a breakthrough. Addressing the Assembly during a question session on the recent British Irish Council (BIC) summit, the First Minister said: "I think we are all dealing with very difficult situations at the moment, we will have an executive meeting later today and I very much hope that consensus can be