An Taoiseach has said that “severe” restrictions will continue until at least the end of April

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin said last night that “severe” restrictions will remain in place until the end of April ahead of the release of the revised Living with Covid plan next week.

Current Level 5 restrictions are due to expire on March 5 but it could be a while longer before the country opens up in any significant way. In an interview with the Irish Mirror published on Thursday night, Micheál Martin said that “what’ll happen next will be modest, I wouldn’t overstate it in the sense of announcements and so on.”

He added that “we are looking at a continuation of severe restrictions certainly right into April. We’ll have some look at construction but then again it won’t be a full return to construction, we’ll assess what the public health advice is. We’ve already certainly indicated that beyond Easter we’ll look at it again but until the end of April you can look at significant restrictions and we’ll review it after that then because we’ll have to see where we are.”

Mr. Martin indicated that monthly vaccines doses of 1.2 million are expected but reopening personal services such as hairdressers is something that will be looked at “towards the end of the second quarter.”

Schools are set to begin reopening on a phased basis from March 1 but Deputy Chief Medical Offier Dr. Ronan Glynn advised yesterday evening that the public should not see this as a sign that things are opening back up.

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