Stephen Donnelly has said that younger people will not be vaccinated ahead of older groups under the Government's rollout plan.
The Health Minister said that "nothing was being thrown out the window" in order to prioritise the 18-30 year old cohort despite reports suggesting this was the case on Saturday.
He stated that the idea had been floated with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn as a precaution, citing that research suggested this group could be most at risk of spreading the virus once the country begins re-opening.
However, the idea had been dismissed by NPHET on Thursday, Mr Donnelly said.
He explained: "There is no plan to prioritise this - I was just checking in with the Deputy CMO after a reporter asked me a question, and I was responding to a question I was being asked, but this is not something that will be done according to the data we have at this time."
"This is just one of the many questions we have to ask on a regular basis in order to make sure the roll-out is as efficient as possible," he told Newstalk's On The Record with Gavan Reilly.
Minister Donnelly said that there is legal complications with Mandatory Hotel Quarantine (MHQ) and putting more EU countries on the list.
He explained that despite the EU raising concerns the Government's measures were too restrictive, Ireland's priority was keeping people here safe.
"We've moved first and the furthest in the EU, with having mandatory negative PCR tests for flights coming into the country," he said.
"Look what's happening in Canada - they're having a surge at the moment, and in France. We've blocked travel from those countries and it's clear that it's working."
Mr Donnelly said he was "confident" in the decision to provide exemptions from hotel quarantine for people who are fully vaccinated.
But he said this was "only for vaccines which are recognised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)", adding that the "data on transmissions is sufficient enough to do this."
People who receive exemptions from MHQ will still have to quarantine at home when they arrive into the country.
The Health Minister also said he did not want to pre-empt any decision the Government were making on blocking travel from Britain, in light of a new Indian variant breaking-out in England, saying that he was awaiting on advice from NPHET on the matter.
He also stated that the Government is not aware of any cases of the Indian variant in Ireland.
Mr Donnelly also spoke on the Government's recent consideration to extend the intervals between vaccine doses, saying that this is one area where the Government is looking at in order to meet targets.
"We're expecting a decision on that this week, but we're looking at the case for extending the vaccine for a four week, eight week or 12 week interval and the data that is there to see if there is space for that," he explained.
The Health Minister also gave an update on a summer re-opening, saying that we must follow "the data, not dates".
He said: "When we sat down to talk about what would happen in April, we were looking at maybe cases hitting 1,000 a day.
"We're in a much better position now than we were back then, and one thing that has to be commended is that people took public health advice on board.
"There is so much uncertainty at the moment and we're working towards the suppression of variants, the acceleration of the roll-out and the suppression of the cases.
"We need as much granularity as possible when it comes to the next few months, and an exact approach for that has not been decided yet."
