The Minister for Foreign Affairs has said that Brexit talks are in a "very serious zone of negotiations".
Simon Coveney said he is confident of an agreement with the United Kingdom, but added that it will be difficult.
He is urging people to be ready for changes in January, when the 12 month transition period comes to an end.
Discussions are continuing to establish a future relationship between the two blocs, including a trade deal
Minister Coveney told an Irish Farmers Journal webinar this afternoon that there will be no extensions to the Brexit talks.
He said: "Time is up at the end of the year, there will be a new trading environment from January 1st.
"If there's no trade deal, it's basically on the basis of WTO standards.
"If there is a trade deal, that will avoid tariffs and quotas but we're still going to have, unfortunately, a lot of disrupters to trade, checking systems, customs declarations, standards checks."
Minister Coveney added that believes there will be an agreement between the two sides.
He said: "People who follow Brexit will have noticed that everything has gone quiet in the last few days and that's because negotiators are in a serious zone of negotiations right now, which is where they should be.
"I think you'll see very little leaking out from the negotiations in the next week or so and that's what we want.
"I think the idea that we would move into 2021 without any structured agreement in place between the EU and the UK, with all the acrimony that would flow from the inability to get an agreement and the cobbled-together sectoral contingency plans, the cost of failure here politically is very expensive for all sides but particularly for the UK."
The Minister said that a Brexit deal is "doable but difficult".
He said: "Can we get a deal? Yes we can.
"This is doable but difficult and really the next fortnight is the key period of time to try and close this out.
"After four and half years of negotiation around Brexit, hopefully we will have a future relationship that has a lot more than a basic trade deal intact."
Reporting by Andrew Lowth
