By Joleen Murphy
People are being urged not to breach Covid restrictions this Easter Bank Holiday weekend.
Public health officials have appealed to people to at least meet up outside if they are breaking the rules.
It comes as the Taoiseach has warned the summer could be ruined if COVID restrictions are eased too quickly.
Micheál Martin told his parliamentary party that being too liberal with reopening is risky.
Infectious Disease Specialist Professor Sam McConkey says a fourth wave is possible if people aren’t careful.
"If we open up lots of things now as we did on the 4th of December ie. multi generational socialising, retail, it is quite possible that something similar that something will happen over the next month or two that happened over late December and January."
411 new cases of Covid and 6 further deaths were reported in the Republic yesterday.
In the South South East, Wexford recorded the 4th highest county case figure in the country with 25 new cases.
There are 9 in Tipperary, less than 5 in both Waterford and Carlow, while Kilkenny recorded no new cases yesterday.
274 people with Covid-19 are in hospitals this morning - the lowest total since December 26th.
It's down from 294 yesterday.
In the past 24 hours there were 18 admissions to hospitals, as well as 31 discharges.
Last night there were 64 patients with the disease in ICU.
