The Health Minister has said it is "entirely possible" that local lockdowns will be brought in again.
Stephen Donnelly believes other counties may experience the reintroduction of restrictions currently seen in Kildare, Offaly and Laois.
The Fianna Fail TD defended the decision to reimpose lockdown measures in these counties and warned "we could have been right back to the start again" if the Government didn't step in.
He said: "I really believe that the measures that the public health doctors recommended for Kildare, Laois and Offaly are very nuanced.
"It is entirely possible yeah (that we introduce those measures again). I think what Laois, Kildare and Offaly have shown is just how quickly this virus can spread and the need for us to react to it quickly.
"So Laois, Kildare and Offaly, if we hadn't reacted as quickly as we had, what the public health doctors would say is: 'We wouldn't have seen the scale of this, it would have seeped into the community very quickly and inevitably it would have got into the nursing homes, it would have spread around the country.'
"And actually we could have been right back to the start again, having to impose really strict measures across the entire country.
"The idea is by having the testing and tracing systems in place and to have a system like NPHET is proposing we can move as quickly as possible and as locally as possible to try and contain the virus when we do see outbreaks."
The Minister was speaking to RTE's Morning Ireland when he also revealed plans for a new colour-coded system which would help the country reopen.
The new plan will involve us moving through phases based on traffic light colours, red, orange and yellow, along with blue.
Green is not being used because of concerns people would become too complacent if they got the "green light".
It has been likened to the Met Eireann weather warning system that many people are already used to.
Mr Donnelly said most of the country is currently at yellow.
He added: “The colour-coded warning system will be able to say where we are at on any particular day.”
Mr Donnelly said: “I am not concerned about the response and the resilience of the Irish people.
“The response so far has been spectacular.”
The new plan from Mr Donnelly indicates an acceptance from the Minister that the virus isn’t going away anytime soon and that a different approach to the phased roadmap out of lockdown was needed.
He added: “We could be looking at this for nine months, we could be looking at this for two years, we don’t know.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin hinted at the new way yesterday when he told reporters that a change in tactics is one the way.
He said: “Like other countries there’s been an increase in numbers so we’ve got to look through and plan ahead of potential scenarios.”
