Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe says the Government has not yet made a decision on extending the Pandemic Unemployment Payment beyond June 8.
He did not confirm if the €350 per week allowance would continue past this point.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland on Friday, Minister Donohoe stressed that the unemployment payment schemes are costing hundreds of millions per week and "we want to get the balance right".
Over a million people are currently relying on the state for their income at the moment, he revealed.
Minister Donohoe said he recognised the "strain and worry" affecting those who are out of work and relying on wage supports and added that the Government were trying to "preserve people's income."
He also added that the Government want to get the country back to work and added "We're going to do what we can to keep the jobs we have."
And he reiterated the importance of a phased reopening of the economy to ensure the health and safety of workers.
"The very way we can deal with the issues you're correctly identifying is to do this in a phased way, with enough time between each phase to understand the impact on public health of the decisions that we have previously made."
Minister Donohoe said the Government wants to see the effect of reopening the economy before they make a decision on extending the Pandemic Unemployment Payment or the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.
He added: "What we are doing at the moment, is evaluating what we might be able to afford in the future and crucially, we want to see what happens when we go ahead with phase one of the economy and what happens with employment levels when we make this decision.
"These payments do definitely have a future, but the nature of that future, how long the payments are going to be sustained for and the level of the payment, we will have to make a decision on that in the coming weeks.
"Because they do cost so much and because we're about to go ahead with the reopening of our economy, we want to see the effect of that reopening first and then we'll make a decision after that."
