The HSE CEO Paul Reid has hailed the "remarkable" vaccination rollout programme as the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen to its' lowest in eight months.
Last night, 59 patients were in hospital as a result of the virus, with 23 of those in ICU.
It's the lowest number of overall patients since September 12 of last year.
CEO of the HSE Paul Reid published the figures on his Twitter on Thursday night and said the number of Covid-19 hospital inpatients ”continues an amazing decline.”
Mr Reid added: "This is a remarkable benefit of our strong vaccination programme & public support overall. We all deserve to cherish and protect these great moments"
Earlier on Thursday, Mr Reid issued a minor warning to the public about the situation of Covid in Ireland right now, particularly given how our neighbours are dealing with the Delta variant.
"We must always remain cautious. We only need to look at the UK yesterday to see the dangers of the Delta variant in particular," he said.
"They recorded 7,500 new cases of Covid yesterday, that was their highest since the end of February."
The vaccine rollout plan has continued to ramp up, however.
As it stands, 3.1 million doses have been administered.
Over 2.2 million people have now received one jab and over 1.1 million have now received their second.
26% of the population are fully vaccinated, while 57% have been jabbed with a first dose.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Micheal Martin said "Well can I just put one note of warning and concern is the Indian variant and what is happening in the United Kingdom, we said we would keep a close eye on that and we are keeping a close eye on that."
He added: "We're making good progress, the hospitalisations this morning are 77 in hospital, 27 in ICU, so it's so far, so good. Although there is a Bank Holiday effect in terms of the numbers which will see numbers increase towards the end of the week.
"But we are just watching the British situation and the fact they are looking at higher hospitalisations, and in particular geographies, in Britain. The numbers are going up, so we're keeping a very close eye on that."
