Retail giant Primark have announced they are opening stores across England on June 15.
But plans to open the doors of Penneys stores in Ireland remain unclear with the fashion retailer saying they plan to reopen once they are 'convinced it is safe to do so'.
A spokeswoman for Primark Ireland told the Irish Mirror: "Nothing matters more to us than the health and wellbeing of our employees and customers.
"That is why we will only re-open our stores in Ireland once we are convinced that it is safe and right to do so.
"We are closely following all safety advice from government and will treat this as the minimum standard across all our stores."
However the company has said they anticipate further openings in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in late June, Belfast Live reports.
Penneys stores across Ireland shut their doors back in March as the government announced lockdown measures due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement, retail group Associated British Foods plc said they will be implementing social distancing protocols, hand sanitiser stations, perspex screens at tills and additional cleaning of high frequency touch points in the UK stores.
Personal protection, including masks and gloves, are also being made available to all employees.
Their statement said: "We took a number of actions in Primark to substantially reduce the cash outflow resulting from this loss of sales. These mainly comprised cancellation of future orders for goods where the handover date from the supplier was after 17 April and a range of measures to reduce operating overhead while the stores are closed.
"The most significant contributor to the reduction in overheads has been access to government employment retention schemes across Europe, assisted by a temporary voluntary reduction in salaries for all Primark employees not covered by a government scheme. We continue to make progress in our discussions with landlords to renegotiate some of the terms in our lease arrangements.
"As European governments have begun to ease restrictions on clothing retailing we have been able to re-open stores. Safety has been our highest priority in our detailed preparations to welcome our customers and employees back to stores. We are following government safety advice in all markets.
"Importantly, we will apply the valuable experience gained from more than 100 stores which are already open as we open the remainder of our estate, including stores across the UK. These measures are designed to safeguard the health and wellbeing of everyone in store and to instil confidence in the store environment. Feedback from customers and employees in those markets where the stores are open has been positive.
"As at today, Primark is trading in 112 stores which represent 34 percent of our total selling space. Primark is now working to re-open all its stores in England on 15 June, following the recent announcement by the UK Government.
"At that date we expect to be operating from 281 stores representing 79 percent of total selling space. We await further guidance for the stores in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and anticipate openings in late June."
