More Covid-19 restrictions are likely to be recommended in the Republic of Ireland, Leo Varadkar has said.
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The tánaiste (Irish deputy PM) said he expected recommendations to be made on reducing social mixing, management of close contacts, and international travel.
Cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant are continuing to rise in the country.
Ireland's National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is expected to make the recommendations on Thursday.
Omicron is likely to become the dominant Covid-19 variant in the Republic "as soon as next week", according to the Fine Gael leader.
"Unfortunately, when it comes to Omicron, there's still a lot of uncertainty," he told Newstalk's Pat Kenny show.
Responding to reports that the Omicron variant is milder than those seen before, Mr Varadkar said: "If it is twice as transmissible, but half as severe, that's still as bad in terms of the impact on the health service.
"We have to double down on those public health measures we've all been adhering to, like mask-wearing."
The tánaiste said Ireland needed to "speed up" its vaccination booster programme, adding that it was "all hands on deck" to do so.
"1.25 million people already have received their third dose, some people got a fourth dose - the immunocompromised - we'd expect to get close to 1.75 million by Christmas maybe 2 million by the new year," he said.
"But that on its own will probably not be enough.