The Department of Health has released a list of the 18 new countries on the "high-risk" list.
Any passengers arriving from these countries will have to complete a 14-day self quarantine upon arrival in Ireland.
Brazil and South Africa had all ready been listed with 18 more countries added on Friday, February 12:
They are;
- Angola, Austria, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said: “Under the current Level 5 restrictions nobody should be engaging in non-essential travel at this time.
"These stringent measures on people arriving to Ireland from 20 states are necessary in responding to the risks posed by variants of concern.
“People who arrive in Ireland must now complete a full mandatory 14-day period of self-quarantine if they have been in any of these states in the previous 14 days.
"The Government will shortly consider legislation that will require such passengers arriving here to complete this quarantine at a designated facility.”
The Minister for Justice is examining the question of changes to visa arrangements in respect of applicable states being added to the schedule 2 list.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin explained to the Dáil on Thursday why the Government is expanding the list of quarantine countries to curb the potential reimportation of Covid, or new strains of it.
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Mr Martin said people should not be undertaking non-essential overseas travel.
He said: "It's regrettable that people don't really get it, that travel abroad for non-essential purposes is a breach of Level 5 regulations.
"Given the variants in particular, it is very important that people would adhere to these regulations.
“We don't want to add to the difficulties and complexities of this virus by importing mutations and new variants of the virus.”
