Ireland will be in a much "brighter place" in June when the most vulnerable people have been vaccinated, Dr Ronan Glynn has said.
The Deputy Chief Medical Officer insisted on Thursday that the country will continue to take a cautious approach to reopening the country.
And with progress against the virus stalling, the experts have suggested any changes on April 5 will be minimal.
Dr Glynn said: "The plan is to proceed very cautiously on the basis of the data that's in front of us, for as long as it takes. I'm hopeful that as we move into June, as those who have been most vulnerable are fully vaccinated and as we roll out millions of doses of vaccine to adults, that we'll be in a far, far brighter and better position than we are at the moment.
"Over the next while, we will need to continue to be cautious. There will be things that we can focus on - like, we've said for the past year that outdoors is much safer than indoors - and I think over the next couple of months, the focus will have to be on outdoors and obviously, we need to continue to look at the data and get to April 5.
"Between now and then, I'll ask people to do as much as they can to ensure we get to April 5 in the best position possible. I'm not going to say that we need tighter restrictions because the headline tomorrow will be NPHET calls for no ease of restrictions and so, we need to be cautious."
On the issue of vaccines and Ireland's supply issues, Dr Glynn was optimistic that "8 out of 10 adults in this country will have at least one dose of vaccine available to them by the end of June.
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"We all want to get more people vaccinated and of course, if the population is vaccinated then we'd be in a far stronger position. I'm less concerned about what happens day-to-day and week-to-week, I think we need to move away from that narrative and focus on the fact we've come through an incredibly difficult year and in a few short months, hopefully, we'll be in a far, far better position.
"All going well, 8 out of 10 adults in this country will have at least one dose of vaccine available to them by the end of June."
The Government is set to meet in the next two weeks where they will discuss what Ireland can change on April 5 and where the country goes from there.
