Labour's Duncan Smith says the Government's controversial green list of countries deemed safe for travel sends the "wrong message."
He said: "We have not got our house in order in terms of people coming into this country, in terms of quarantine, in terms of testing, until we get that right, any green listing or anything of the sort is sending the entirely wrong message and it's putting all the good work we have achieved as a society at risk."
Mr Smith questioned: "Why are they using the phrase green list? Green means go, that is a simple message from when a child is 18 months of age.
"The messaging around this is all wrong. That's something we've done well in this country up until this point with the pandemic has been strong clear messaging from Government.
"And this seems to be frittered away now over the last few weeks.
"Leadership is weak on this and if they get this wrong as Professor Scally said yesterday on the This Week programme we're at the fork in the road, if we take the wrong road in this, we could be going back to where we were a few months ago and nobody wants that.
He told RTE's Morning Ireland on Monday: "This is not about cutting ourselves off. This is about getting fundamentals right in terms of testing and looking after people who are coming into this country.
"If we get that right, we can open up our economy because we will have a regime in place that will give confidence to people coming into the country and to Irish people.
"We were trying to encourage people to go to the Wild Atlantic Way, the Ancient East, the Shannon, people don't have confidence at the moment to have a staycation because they're concerned about the regime for people coming in and they are right to be concerned."
"If we get this wrong now, there will be no autumn or spring or winter 2021 economy for businesses, the next few weeks are critical."
Mr Smith also said he believed a €9 to €10 billion rescue package would be needed to help struggling Irish businesses and give them "confidence" to survive the coming weeks.
