Conor McGregor has called on airports to be shut and a lockdown to be enforced in Ireland immediately.
The UFC star posted a video addressing the Irish nation on his social media channels on Tuesday afternoon.
In the clip, he said: "Hello everyone. Hello Ireland.
"I would like to address my nation. To the people of Ireland, to our President Michael D Higgins, to Vice Admiral Mark Mellett, to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan, Leo [Varadkar], the two Simons [Coveney and Harris], Mary [Lou McDonald] and Micheál [Martin], I respect you all greatly and I would like to put forth some of my thinking.
"I would like to say that while we are all currently debating a full lockdown, I feel that we must. Any time spent debating this is needless time from the clock.
"I know a good, tough fight when I see one and we have one on our hands now.
"I want to call upon my people, the great people of Ireland, this fight needs us all. We are all in the red corner together awaiting the bell so let’s gather together and ring the bell ourselves, including the people of the rest of the world.
"True lockdown must begin and it must begin now. A lockdown together. A lockdown united. We must close our airports. We must close all non-essential business. We must cut all non-essential travel.
"Commissioner Harris and Vice Admiral Mellett - you must prepare and deploy our units to all and any known built-up areas across our country now.
"President Higgins - you must give these great men and women the power to enforce this task if necessary.
"However I know that when the true seriousness of this is understood as it is becoming now, our great nation will oblige and impeccably do so.
"It is time for a full lockdown and we are ready. Powers that be, I am calling on you all. The fate of our great island depends on it.
"This is my proposal and I pray that we can make this happen.
"We need to take the same measures of some of the heavier affected countries. Only we must do it in quicker time.
"We have the advantage here in that we can see this coming. We can see this coming, but if we do not act on our advantage than we can not expect different results.
"We are not adhering to social distancing. At least not to the extent required to halt exponential growth. A lockdown will facilitate this . It will reduce transmission, it will take the pressure off our frontline staff and it will allow us to identify all of our cases.
"These methods are stringent but necessary and it worked in China and Hong Kong.
"Ireland we have got this. Not only do we have the formula, we have it ahead of time.
"Let's go Ireland. Let's go rest of the world. Lockdown united. Together we stand. God bless us all."
