Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has offered some optimism that the country will see a relative return to normality next year.
The Fine Gael leader has made clear that restrictions will remain in place for some time as the battle to reduce Covid cases continues.
However, Mr Varadkar has said that he is optimistic that we will see some normality this summer, and has said he anticipates a "very normal life" as vaccines are rolled out throughout the year.
Speaking to Newstalk, he said: "I've always been a Covid optimist and I haven't always been right, I have been right a lot of the time but certainly not always.
"I think with vaccines, with antigen testing, with better treatments, with a robust test, trace and isolate system, with appropriate controls on international travel we can get back to a life more normal this summer and hopefully a very normal life some time next year but as I say, this virus keeps surprising us."
Mr Varadkar added that there were a number of factors dictating when restrictions will ultimately be lifted.
He said: "I've come to accept the advice from NPHET and the experts on this that setting a specific metric is unwise, that you have to take into account a number of factors.
"There are four factors we are taking into account: the variants, the virus, the number of cases as expressed by the R number and also the state of our hospitals.
"You could have a low number of cases because you're not doing much testing or you're testing the wrong people, that would be a false low.
"You could have a high number in hospital but that could be down to an outbreak in one or two hospitals.
"So the advice is it's not good to pick one figure that we have to look at these four or five things."
Meanwhile, NPHET expert Professor Philip Nolan has said he would like to see the majority of restrictions "fall away" by the summer time.
Prof Nolan said that while masks and social distancing are likely to remain the norm in the near future, he is optimistic that we will be in a much better place in terms of restrictions come the summer months.
He also told Newstalk: "I anticipate there will be some progressive easing of restrictions over time from April, May onward.
"There'll probably be a point at which we have quite wide-spread vaccinations that many of the restrictions can fall away very quickly, particularly if vaccination is highly effective as we hope it might be in interrupting transmissions.
"Really until we come close to eliminating this virus, probably through the impact of vaccination, there are certain settings that we have to be really, really careful in.
"There's certain settings we're going to have to be really, really careful in. I think in certain circumstances we'll be wearing masks for a while, we're going to be careful with our hand hygiene for a while, we're going to be careful not be too crowded into the one setting for a while.
"But many of the other restrictions, I hope, will start to fall away over the course of the summer."
