As the country nears the end of another month in Level Five lockdown all eyes are on the Government as to what decision will be taken in the coming weeks.
The Government has set April 5 as the date in which the restrictions will be reviewed.
However Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said that he will provide an update next week ahead of the big decision on April 5.
While its expected there will not be a major change to the current restrictions in place some minor easing is likely.
However both Taoiseach and the Health Minister have warned that the Covid-19 situation is 'concerning'.
Here's what Government leaders are saying:
Micheal Martin
Taoiseach Micheál Martin was adamant not to speculate on what the reopening of society would look like beyond April 5.
He said: “We will make an announcement early next week in relation to the phase after April 5th.
“We would appeal to people to avoid going indoors, avoid making a social visit to another house.
“The key objective for us is that we have to avoid a fourth wave.
“We’re watching what is happening across Europe and a number of Member States.
“We understand people are fatigued and tired..their hard working and sacrifice has yielded results and we’re going to have to take that on board as well.”
Mr Martin defended the government’s Covid-19 strategy stating it “we’ve been clear in terms of our strategy and it has worked because the numbers have come dramatically down.”
He added: “Clearly we have more vaccinations to do and the volume of vaccinations and supply will increase in quarter two in April, May and June.
“That is something we will factor into our decision making but I’m not going to say anything else beyond that.”
Stephen Donnelly
Speaking yesterday the Health Minister: “We’re all very concerned about the figures right now.
“There has always been a question which is given the presence of the B117 variant and the fact it is much more contagious, just how low will the cases go?”
On restrictions, he said the government is very aware it has been a long lockdown and people are “exhausted.”
He said: “What we’ve got to do is see if there’s a small number of measures that would make people’s lives easier and that carry relatively low risk in terms of spread while doing everything we can to try and target and suppress the virus in other areas.”
