Irish people can expect to get their lives back to “pretty much normal” by August, Tanáiste Leo Varadkar has predicted.
And that month could also see the “vast majority of restrictions” as a thing of the past.
Mr Varadkar said it was “his best guess” based on the evidence coming out of Israel and the UK as they are further along their vaccination programme.
It comes as the government has plans to buy booster Pfizer vaccines for 2022 and 2023 which will likely be needed to protect against Covid-19 variants.
Speaking at the Department of Health on Wednesday, Mr Varadkar said: “I think we have to get through another winter to be sure, but I do think life will pretty much back to normal by August.
“Life in Israel is pretty much back to normal, they're welcoming tourists again and they're having, not very large gatherings, but they are having mass gatherings.
"They kind of got to that point when they were at, where we would expect to be by August.
“So, I'm hoping that that's the month when things are relatively normal again.
“That doesn't mean that everything will be the same, but the vast majority of restrictions, you would hope to see gone by August of this year.”
However, the Fine Gael leader said he thinks there will still be restrictions on mass gatherings and international travel at that point.
He said nobody can promise that timeline given Covid-19 is a new virus and said nobody knows for sure.
He said: “We don't know what might happen in terms of variants that may be vaccine resistant, and we don't know what will happen when winter comes.”
The Tanáiste also said that if he was working in the hospitality business, he would be planning for indoor dining in July.
He said: “I will still be hopeful, and on the confident side of hopeful that we'll have indoor dining in pubs and restaurants in July.
“It's just that July is quite far away, and we can't really make a call until the end of June.
“But you know cases are stable, hospitalisations and ICUs are falling.
“And everyday tens of thousands of more people are vaccinated so you know, if I was in the hospitality business I'd be planning for outdoors in June and indoors in July, subject to all the usual caveats.”
