Families may not be able to visit loved ones this Christmas as the lockdown cases drop slows.
Nursing Homes Ireland CEO Tadhg Daly said they are "concerned" by recent figures as the guidelines for Christmas are finalised.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Daly said: "Our view is we need to explore all of the options in terms of safe visits but clearly the rise in community transmission is a very worrying development over the last while and we are concerned that may impact plans to facilitate safe visits over Christmas.
"We will be guided by public health advice and, in general, the advice up to now has been that, visits to high-risk areas is very, very challenging.
"We are looking at visitor areas for example, where families can come, maybe not physically into the building, and likewise residents don’t have to leave the building."
Dr Tony Holohan warned on Tuesday night that there is major concern over the rising case figures.
The Chief Medical Officer said: “The 5-day moving average of daily cases has increased from an average of 350 cases on the 11 November to 424 today.
“We have two weeks to continue in our efforts to drive down community transmission of this disease as much as possible. The lower the incidence the more flexibility the country will have in easing measures.”
On Tuesday a further 366 coronavirus cases were confirmed.
Meanwhile sadly another 11 Covid-19 related deaths were announced.
