The Government will introduce a raft of new travel restrictions with the UK in a bid to curb the spread of the Delta Covid-19 variant in Ireland.
Transport Minister Eamon Ryan confirmed on Tuesday that Cabinet will be bringing in new measures - which include longer isolation periods and the need for two negative PCR tests.
"This is to stay safe. To delay, not stop, the reuniting of families," he said.
"The Delta variant in the UK is a concern. I'm going into Cabinet after this and we're going to be discussing our approach to that.
"It's likely, subject to Cabinet agreeing, that we will also change our recommendation for people coming from the UK just for this period, because there is a concern about this variant.
"It will be a tightening, where, after being able to release yourself from quarantine after five days, we're going to make that 10 days, on the back of two PCR tests to show negative.
"And the reason is to just try and hold that back while our vaccination programme rolls out for a number of weeks - to give us greater protection."
The news comes after Boris Johnson announced a slowing down of Britain's reopening by four weeks on Monday.
According to the HSE, the Republic of Ireland had 126 cases of the new strain as of Sunday.
And Minister Ryan said that the large volumes of people taking the vaccine will help protect our society and reopening.
He told RTE's Morning Ireland: "Domestically here, we are testing obviously...there's small numbers of the Delta variant but it is in the country, more on the eastern half than the west.
"The more we can delay its spread, the better protection we will have...the uptake in vaccines here has been incredible and that will protect us."
