A 28-year-old woman has been jailed for four weeks for coughing in the face of a garda, the first person to go to prison for the offence during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Rachel Conway, from Rusheen Ard, Caltragh in Sligo, was arrested while drinking with a group of people at the new footbridge in Sligo Town.

The mother-of-three apologised to the garda but the Superintendent for Co Leitrim, Kevin English, said he was seeking the protection of the court especially in the current pandemic.

Judge Kevin Kilraine said the country was facing a crisis costing millions of euro and he wanted to send out a message.

Coughing in the face of a garda was "nasty" in normal times, he said, but "in the present context" he would "deal with it severely".

He jailed Conway for 28 days.