Passengers could leave quarantine hotels after just five days if they test negative for COVID-19 under proposals being discussed by the Government.
The new plans are being considered by officials to deal with a possible jump in people flying in from high-risk countries.
Senior government officials met yesterday to examine the possibility of reducing the period of time travellers are required to stay in quarantine hotels from 10 days to five if they test negative for the virus.
There are currently 58 countries on the list of high-risk countries.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is pushing to add more countries including France, Italy and Germany to the list over new coronavirus strain concerns, the Irish Independent reports.
But Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney are against the move over legal worries on restricting EU citizens and the system's capacity.
Speaking on RTE Prime Time last night, Minister Donnelly said: "The advice we have that is of concern to me and to other colleagues is the variant-of-concern countries.
“The point of mandatory hotel quarantining - we only want this to be a short term thing for a few months - the core function of it is to stop people from coming into the country from these countries”.
