Leo Varadkar is urging people to keep adhering to public health guidelines for another few weeks as "we're so close to the finish line".
The Tanaiste offered some hope for the summer and acknowledged that Irish people are "going stir crazy" during the lockdown.
It comes after there were 575 new cases but no further deaths related to Covid-19 reported by NPHET yesterday.
An update on the possible easing of some restrictions is expected before April 5, with the 5km travel limit, construction and outdoor activity all up for discussion.
Mr Varadkar appealed to the Irish public to keep adhering to the rules so that we can all hopefully enjoy the summer months under less stringent guidelines.
"I would really ask people to hold off for another few weeks, I know how difficult it is and everyone's got cabin fever, everyone's going stir crazy, everyone just really wants this to end," he told Pat Kenny on Newstalk.
"But we're so close now to the finish because we have the vaccine programme, with 630,000 vaccines already given.
"We just need to hang on for a few more weeks until we vaccinate those who are most at risk and we get to the summer period."
He added that he doesn't like being in lockdown "any more than anyone else" and that it goes against all his own instincts, "to take away people's personal freedoms".
However, he believes the vaccination programme offers light at the end of the tunnel in terms of reopening society and ensuring that those who are most vulnerable are protected from the virus.
Mr Varadkar also indicated that the summer months will have a positive impact on the transmissibility of Covid-19.
"As Minister for Enterprise and Employment, I hate to see businesses closed and I hate to see people unable to go to work but I think this is what we have to do until we get a critical mass of vaccines into people's arms, and at least until we get to the summer when respiratory viruses find it harder to spread," he said.
"I'm sadly sure that if we did a rapid opening over the next couple of weeks that we would see a significant up-tick in the virus in the way we did in December."
The Tanaiste said there are some positive clinical indicators regarding the virus despite the high numbers of cases this week.
"What we do see now is a backdrop of rising case numbers, the 7-day average is now rising," he stated.
"That said, the positives in the lab yesterday were 343, with a positivity rate of 3.2% which is pretty low actually.
"We're going to have to monitor the situation between now and the end of March and make a decision at the end of March as to whether it's possible to ease any restrictions on April 5.
"What is encouraging is that ICU numbers are falling, the number of people in hospitals is still falling, but still every day, unfortunately, there are people being admitted to hospital with Covid so this virus hasn't gone away."
Mr Varadkar added that while the reopening of schools is welcome, more information is needed on whether this is a contributory factor to the rise in case numbers.
"There was always a risk with reopening schools that we would see an increase in transmission because of children and young people meeting each other more frequently and parents moving around more, taking their kids to school," he explained.
"But we don't know for sure whether this is the cause of the uptick, there haven't been that many cases or outbreaks in schools themselves."
He warned that the strain of Covid-19 which originated in the UK does impact younger people, albeit not as significantly as older and more vulnerable groups.
"I wouldn't like the message to get out to younger people that they can't die from this virus or they can't get very sick from it, they can and also it's still possible for them to infect older people who are not vaccinated," he said.
