Tanaiste Leo Varadkar shared a rare snap with partner Matt Barrett as the couple enjoyed a New Year's Eve night in.
The Fine Gael leader shared the image with his 195,000 followers on Instagram.
He wrote: "Not the NYE anyone hoped for I know but hope everyone is staying safe & happy new year."
It comes after earlier this week Mr Varadkar offered some hope for next year as he said he believes Ireland could overcome the Omicron surge faster than previous waves - despite record case numbers.
The Tanaiste said that January would be a very tough month due to rising case numbers, but that the peak of infections is expected to be earlier than with previous variants.
He added that due to the high vaccination uptake and previous infection levels, it can be expected that the peak could be reached in another week or two.
But he warned that we will continue to see rising hospital and intensive care numbers before then.
“There will be an increase in the patient numbers in hospital and ICU but this won’t be as high as it was last winter because of immunity that has built up due to the vaccine programme and prior infection," he told the Irish Times.
“There is a peak at some stage and we aren’t at that by any stretch just yet, but we don’t know we are at the early stages.
“What we expected is happening because it does accelerate quite quickly, we know it transmits five times quicker than Delta and that’s exactly what’s happening in the community."
However he added that thankfully the health system is still holding “relatively stable” and has not surged to levels that hospitals can’t handle.
