Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has pleaded with Irish people to holiday at home this year despite publishing a Green List of safe countries.
And he also confirmed that travellers from high-risk locations could soon be tested before arriving in Ireland as part of a range of strict new measures.
The Government published a Green List of places that Irish tourists can visit without needing to self-isolate upon their return on Tuesday night.
The 15 countries are Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino.
However the official advice remains to avoid non-essential foreign travel, and Mr Coveney insisted that Irish people should "stay at home" this year.
He told Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One: "The message from the Government is still clear, that the safest thing to do is not to take your holidays abroad, to stay at home, to look after your family, spend your money at home and to holiday at home.
"But we know about 50,000 people a week are leaving the country and I have an obligation as Minister for Foreign Affairs to give them guidance on the risk that is attached to that travel."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs also revealed that plans are underway for stricter measures on people visiting here from Covid-19 hotspots, as well as random testing at Irish airports.
He added: "What we're doing is looking at countries that may effectively become hotspots for Covid-19 in the months ahead, or indeed regions within countries, and looking at ways we can deal with that risk in terms of international travel.
"We're now over the next few weeks looking at regions that may have a high risk level in terms of whether we should introduce new restrictions.
"It could involve a requirement to test before you come to Ireland, for example, or indeed looking at other international best practices on how you can provide more restriction.
"One of the things we will have in place over the next few weeks is random testing in our airports for people coming from non-green list countries. and we will have testing facilities available for people who may have symptoms of Covid-19."
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