Older people are being warned they'll have to keep "cocooning" until the country has control of Covid-19.
People over 70 have been urged to stay at home at all times since March 27th, to try prevent them contracting the infection.
While the Department of Health insists cocooning is advisory and not mandatory, Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan says the over-70s shouldn't leave their homes yet.
"We can't give advice to people that it's appropriate for them to come back out and come to an end to the period of cocooning until we think that we have sufficient control in the community generally in relation to this disease.
"I don't think we're at that point yet, and while we think we're making continued progress in that direction we think we're not there just at this moment in time.
"We won't want to continue an arrangement like this given how challenging it is for people any longer than we think is necessary."
