Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn is hopeful the 85 new cases on Thursday is a "blip" and not sign of things to come.
The new coronavirus cases confirmed on Thursday came as a "surprise" to health officials who are hoping the surge is down to solid contract tracing.
Dr Glynn is asking people to remember six key rules this weekend to help ensure cases don't get out of control.
The acting CMO told RTE's Morning Ireland: "There's six things I'd like to think about each day over the coming days.
"That's to keep a safe distance from others, limit their time from others, meet up outside if possible.
"So we are not telling people not to meet up but to take up appropriate precautions to meet up safely.
"To wash your hands before and afterwards, to wear a mask and of course to download the Covid tracker app."
Many of the new 85 cases on Thursday were linked to a dog food factory in Naas, Co Kildare and Direct Provision Centres.
Experts are hopeful the big cases rise was evidence that the tracing process in place is working and most cases have been identified and isolated.
The doctor added: "We're hopeful that what we are seeing in fact is that our contract tracing system is working really, really well.
"We know over the past week there have been a number of clusters, what we're hopeful is the numbers yesterday reflect the rapid response to those clusters.
"The rapid testing of hundreds of contacts of associated with those clusters and the identification and isolation of cases in those clusters."
And with phase four set to begin on August 10, the health expert refused to be drawn on whether it will get the go ahead.
DR Glynn said: "We're due to make a decision on that phase next week but for now we have to concentrate on the next 24 hours, 48 hours.
"We need to see whether this 85 cases leads to a further jump or a blip.
"Hopefully it's a blip and we will give further consideration to the phase next week but it's quite a distance off at this stage."
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