NPHET’s recommending new restrictions on household visits and indoor hospitality to tackle the spread of Covid-19.
It’s understood to be proposing one household only be allowed gather with three others until mid-February.
Opening hour limits and rules around table sittings and multiple bookings at pubs and restaurants are also proposed.
There has been a further 4 thousand 163 Covid cases, while 545 people are in hospital with the virus, and 117 in ICU.
At St Luke’s hospital for Carlow Kilkenny the number of covid patients has fallen to nine today, but three of those patients are in Intensive Care.
Other hospitals in the region have high numbers with 22 in University Hospital Waterford, 19 in Wexford and 14 in Tipperary.