Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told the Dáil on Thursday the country would “very definitely” remain in Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions for the full six weeks.
However, at a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday he raised the possibility of the Government discussing an easing of restrictions in around two weeks’ time, it has emerged.
The Fine Gael leader told the Dáil it would be the end of the month before the Government decides what level of restrictions Ireland should be at and what movement there should be for Christmas.
He said he did not want to provide misinformation about what people would be able to do in December, even though he was asked to give certainty to businesses and individuals making arrangements for the run up to Christmas.
Mr Varadkar said things were “going very well” with the Level 5 restrictions introduced two weeks ago.
But he reiterated: “What we are saying very definitely is that Level 5 is for six weeks.”
And he would make no promises about what level the country could be in at the end of the lockdown, because “in two or three weeks’ time we might have to turn around and say we’re not going to be able to do that”.
“We want to get the number of cases down as low as possible before considering the state of restrictions. We don’t have a decision yet to tell people what level we move to on December 1st.”
However, a number of well-placed sources have confirmed that at a parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday evening, Mr Varadkar raised the possibility of discussing an easing of restrictions later this month.
He said that the Government wanted to have Level 5 in place for “a full two incubation periods, a full four weeks” out of the six before the Government had a conversation on making changes.
Mr Varadkar is understood to have told TDs and Senators that the Government “wants to get the maximum effect out of Level 5” and get the figures down to “really low numbers before we consider any easing”.
One Government source said there was one school of thought that using the full six weeks could potentially enable a move to Level 2 as opposed to Level 3 which would be welcomed by businesses in the immediate run-up to Christmas.
