An Irish health expert has said that families should be asked to postpone Christmas by six months in an effort to curb COVID-19.
Dr Gabriel Scally has said that the Irish and UK Governments should ask families to postpone to beloved holidays for six months.
He believes that to make families feel better about the situation, they should be given two extra bank holidays in 2021.
The two bank holidays should be offered in June, so that families can celebrate Christmas during the summer solstice, he said.
Dr Scally, who is the President of Epidemiology & Public Health at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, was speaking to RTE News and said by June, the vaccine rollout should have helped enormously with the spread of COVID-19.
He warned that "playing catch-up" with the virus spread was no good, and that restrictions needed to be in place to curb the spread before it became an issue.
And he added that Ireland's current position - with the best 14-day incidence rate in Europe - is more reason why tougher restrictions should be in place to keep the virus at bay.
Families that were planning to have multiple generations mix over the Christmas period should avoid it, he warned, as he said there would be a "bumpy ride" ahead in the next few months.
He also stressed his worry about travel into Ireland over the coming days, and added that if people weren't going to quarantine on their arrival in the country, they were not welcome.
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