Sunseekers will have to shelve holiday plans after Leo Varadkar said nobody will be heading off for “months, not weeks”.
The Taoiseach was speaking in the Dail as he told TDs he is confident we can begin a substantial rollback of the nine-week lockdown on Monday.
And last night health chiefs are understood to have advised the Government they can proceed with phase one of their roadmap to recovery next week.
Mr Varadkar said: “It is our policy to resume normal travel for business, leisure, study and visits to friends and relatives as soon as it is safe to do so but not before.
“This is something the European Commission is currently working on.
“However, it is going to be months, not weeks, before this is possible.”
The Taoiseach also told the Dail the first steps “to reawaken our economy will be done in a slow and gradual way”.
He added: “At all times we will maintain an intense focus on the virus and follow four guiding principles – isolate, test, trace and treat – so that we can quickly react if things go wrong and if there is an increase in cases.
“As we are seeing around the world, this is not a straight path.
“Sometimes progress is halted and there are setbacks.
“We have seen examples of this in Germany, South Korea and, again, most recently in Wuhan.
“The crucial thing is to keep doing the right things, to stick to the strategy and maintain our focus and to expect and look for new clusters and flare-ups. This virus is a fire in retreat.
“We must quench its every spark and stamp out every ember.”
Even though Mr Varadkar is extremely wary of the virus grabbing hold again, he is also optimistic. He said: “While every new case and death is a cause for serious concern, over the last seven days we have seen the lowest daily number of cases and death since March.”
Last night it appeared health chiefs had given the Government the green light to ease restrictions.
This came after a shock rise in new Covid-19 cases was attributed to one hospital not reporting its infections to the National Public Health Emergency Team.
The decision to launch phase one of reopening the country comes as 10 more people – including two health workers – lost their lives in the war with coronavirus. The death toll from the disease has hit 1,506.
An alarming rise of 426 cases yesterday was put down to an un-named hospital not reporting its tests for several weeks –which it is required to do.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said a probe is under way to get to the bottom of the missed cases and to ensure it has not been repeated elsewhere.
He added: “We will be trying to establish why a large number of cases has arisen and come to our attention that we didn’t know about.
“It doesn’t change any of our conclusions of the overall pattern of where we think we are at with the disease.”
Dr Holohan refused to reveal NPHET’s advice to the Government on easing the lockdown, but he told Dublin Live there had been no deterioration in the factors of the disease that feed into the decision.
He said: “The indicators that we think are important to track have all followed the path.
“We haven’t seen a deterioration. In broad terms that is the position. The CMO also said the mental and physical health impacts of lockdown formed part of advice given to the Cabinet yesterday.
Dr Holohan hinted an earlier reopening of childcare facilities, creches and the holding of summer camps was not ruled out.
The recovery roadmap currently prohibits creches from opening in a limited way for another six weeks.
He said: “Living document is a phrase that has been used a lot, it is true in
relation to this. This is not a rigid framework.
“We are open to and will be looking at all these kinds of questions. We will also be looking at the experience of other countries who are ahead of us in opening schools and other facilities which children are attending. We will be looking at this in three-week intervals.
“One of the things we will be particularly sensitive to is the challenge of not just childcare but the whole experience of children and how we can provide positive measures to support children.”
If Cabinet approves going ahead with phase one on Monday several sectors – primarily those whose work is based outdoors – will be able to return.
Builders and gardeners will be back, while gardening centres, DIY shops and farmers markets can also reopen.
Some other shops may also open, including opticians, motor and bicycle repair and electrical stores, in line with public health protocols. Groups of four people will also be able to slowly begin socialising but with strict guidelines still in place.
They will be able to gather outdoors, while maintaining social distancing.
Meanwhile, the CMO was also quizzed on letters from HSE chief Paul Reid which were made public, revealing his frustration at not being informed before NPHET announced a plan to hit 100,000 tests a day.
Asked if he was trying to light a fire under the HSE, Dr Holohan replied: “No.” He added: “Of course tensions are going to arise from time to time. If I told you there were no tensions, we wouldn’t be pushing ourselves hard enough.”
