Micheál Martin: Omicron situation 'under constant review'
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The Taoiseach has said there will be "flexibilities" around the festive season and New Year's Eve.
Speaking in Brussels, Micheál Martin was specifically asked about how pubs are to handle New Year's Eve, when current restrictions mean pubs must close at midnight.
"The situation is challenging with Omicron and I fully appreciate the frustration people are experiencing because of this long pandemic but people are using their common sense and taking precaution, and flexibility in people's behaviour is going to be there," the Taoiseach said.
"I think being overly prescriptive is not the way forward here and we must trust people as well about how they go about their daily lives.
"Obviously public health advice will come, there will be a meeting of Nphet tomorrow evening and I would prefer to wait for that and government's response to that before getting into specifics, but suffice to say, all, including public health officials, realise the festive season is upon us, an important part of the year where families get together and we recognise the obvious human factors involved and flexibilities will apply."
Mr Martin added that no Cabinet meeting has been set yet for Friday but "potentially we'll wait and see" after he had a "casual" meeting last night with the Chief Medical Officer and teased out the situation on Omicon and Covid-19.
"The Government will keep this under constant review, we're nimble to respond when necessary," he added.
The Taoiseach, who was visiting Brussels for an EU Commission meeting, said he does not envisage further restrictions on travel in the EU.
"Ireland is number one in the EU in terms of the primary vaccination programme, and there are member states around 60%-50% that's as a concern for those members states," he said.
"On the travel issue, I think there will be a coordinated approach across the European Union, in respect of travel and in fact public health advice is now that Omicron is everywhere.
"One doesn't actually foresee specific travel measures in respect of Omicron.
The Taoiseach added that testing will be ramped up over Christmas and the HSE will have a capacity of testing 350,000 people a week in the new year.
"Testing is going to be very important," he said.
"We're going to re-emphasise testing before you travel and after and before you engage in social activity to protect your loved ones and protect yourself, the emphasis will be on more and more testing.
"In terms of general behaviour, the hospitals are down again today and likely to go down again next week.
"Now Omicron has arrived on the scene, the data is not here yet on the severity of impact on health and the view is the fact that we're so well vaccinated that it will give us protection but we have to be cautious about that."