Stephen Donnelly has said he is 'concerned' that the new variant of Covid-19 is in Ireland and increasing the spread of the virus.
The Minister for Health was speaking on his way into a Cabinet meeting early on Tuesday, where the Government will consider advice from the Chief Medical Officer on moving the country to a Level Five lockdown.
It is expected that this advice will be rejected, but that pubs, restaurants, cinemas and galleries will close on Christmas Eve, while a travel ban with the UK will be extended.
Mr Donnelly said the country's top medical experts are "very, very concerned", and that Cabinet fear the new variant is already here.
He told reporters: "Our public health doctors, our infectious disease doctors are deeply concerned. They're deeply concerned about how quickly the virus has spread in the last two weeks and are deeply concerned about the varient.
"The Chief Medical Officer wrote to me yesterday and recommended, as it's been widely reported, that we move to Level Five, so that's what we'll be considering this morning. "
He added: "The Chief Medical Officer is very, very concerned. He's very concerned on several fronts. He's very concerned at the speed at which this virus has spread.
"We got a presentation last night from Professor Philip Nolan, showing that the spread of the virus is ahead of even more pessimistic NPHET projections.
"We don't know for sure yet, but there is concern that it might be in part due to this UK variant.
"I was speaking with my counterpart in the UK yesterday and they're very, very concerned."
Meanwhile, the Minister also praised Ireland's performance in tackling the virus to date, saying that the behaviour of the Irish people is why we can have some form of Christmas.
He said: "The job right now is to keep people alive, to keep people safe, and how we do that is we slow this virus down, and we get the vaccination programme going very quickly.
"Ireland has been doing really well. Ireland and Finland have the lowest Covid fatality rates anywhere in Europe in recent times.
"What that means is that on Christmas Day, many people will be able to sit down with their families and have a Christmas Day."
