The Cabinet is to discuss the Ebola crisis today, amid concern over how prepared Ireland is to deal with the virus.

All Ministers - including Health Minister Leo Varadkar - will update the Cabinet as to their own specific areas of responsibility.

Ireland is now on Ebola alert, with the Task Force on Emergency Planning reporting to the Cabinet today.

However the HSE has insisted the risk of the disease reaching Ireland is low

The Chief Medical Officer at the dept of Health Dr Tony Holohan said if an Ebola case was to reach Ireland, the country is prepared "both from a public health point of view and from a clinical point of view".

Dr Holohan said once screening people for the virus leaving the affected countries is in place, its not recommended as a routine here, and in this country we do not have direct passenger flights from that part of the world.

Any suspected cases of Ebola will be referred to The National Isolation Centre, based at the Mater Hospital in Dublin