Green Party leader Eamon Ryan is to meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin this morning to begin the process of negotiations that the three men hope will result in a new coalition government.

The Examiner reports that Department of Health has “blocked” proposals to deploy so-called Section 39 workers working for agencies into nursing homes, the epicentre of Ireland’s Covid-19 crisis, in order to avoid short-term costs. Fórsa had called for such staff trained to work in community and voluntary settings to be brought under the remit of the HSE for the duration of the pandemic in a move akin to the Government’s takeover of private hospitals.

Elsewhere, the HSE is planning to use the country's private hospitals to carry out urgent non-coronavirus procedures over the coming weeks. It's chief executive, Paul Reid, said 241 private hospital consultants had signed up to work in the public sector during the crisis.

In aviation, Aer Lingus has said that it expects to see a far bigger reduction in flights this summer than it had previously predicted. The airline had prepared a schedule for June that would see it fly 15pc of its normal flights, but the "realistic view is now closer to 5pc". Meanwhile, Ryanair said it operated just 600 scheduled flights in April, including a number of rescue and medical flights on behalf of various EU governments, as the coronavirus lockdown closed airspace across Europe. This compares to 75,501 flights it had been expected to fly before the outbreak of coronavirus. On Friday, Fórsa called for government intervention to try to save the aviation industry. 

In other news, Aer Lingus is to conduct a review after pictures emerged of an almost full flight with no apparent evidence of social distancing measures in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

ICTU general secretary Patricia King told the Irish Examiner that union leaders are finalising a document that would be the crux of a new social dialogue agreement with employers and the state. Read more here. 

The Times reports that Deliveroo is planning to implement redundancies at its Irish office as the company sheds staff across its global operations to deal with the effects of Covid-19. The food delivery group has proposed seven of its 16 staff based in Dublin for redundancy.

The Irish Hotels Federation is calling for a permanent reduction in the Tourism Vat rate. Reacting to the Government's €6bn fund to support businesses after Covid-19, it says while welcome, the measures fall short. At the moment about 85 per cent of hotels across the country are closed, with many people laid off or on short-time.

The Indo looks at rebuilding the construction sector in this piece. 

Elsewhere, The Times reports that residential property sales in the first quarter of this year were at their lowest in three years.

Finally for some zen. The Kinks released Waterloo Sunset on this day in 1967. Have a listen here.

Have a good day folks.