People have been urged to wear face coverings in certain public spaces.
However Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan warned that they are not a "magic shield" against Covid-19, and children under the age of 13 have also been told not to wear them.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed on Friday that face coverings should be used in a select number of situations, but revealed that wearing them will not be a legal requirement.
He said: "The additional hygiene measure that has been advised is to use face coverings when using busy public transport or when in an enclosed indoor public area, such as retail outlets."
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But he added: "It's not going to be a legal requirement. There's two reasons for that, first of all the science around it indicates it may be beneficial but it's no substitute for all of the other things like washing your hands and social distancing.
"It's an additional hygiene measure, it's not a substitute for social distancing and other forms of hygiene.
"And secondly, there are people who have allergies to face masks and coverings, so we have to bear that in mind."
Top doctor Tony Holohan also insisted that the public must still continue to follow all public health and hygiene advice.
This includes washing hands regularly, maintaining a two metre physical distance whenever possible, sneezing or cough into your elbow or tissue, and staying home and isolating if sick.
He said: "We cannot regard face coverings as some kind of magic shield in relation to this disease. It is a supplement to the other measures that we are recommending.
"As the Taoiseach has said the evidence isn't very strong in relation to their value, and we do have good evidence that hand transmission is really important, so hand washing has to be maintained."
He added: "This is an additional hygiene measure. It is not a magic bullet for this disease, and that has to be understood."
The Government were also quick to clarify that the advice covers face coverings, rather than masks.
Mr Varadkar continued: "There will be videos on how to make face coverings at home, when to use them and how not to use them, and when to use them, because we think that's going to be important.
"While there is no shortage of [surgical masks] at the moment, if we had millions of people using them every day there's a risk that it might lead to a shortage for our healthcare workers. So that's why we are advising face coverings instead of face masks."
