The Health Minister Stephen Donnelly says he does not expect Halloween celebrations to be the same as in the past.

It comes as new restrictions around household and social gatherings are set to be imposed from midnight tonight.

New guidelines will limit two households coming together, whether it is in private homes or other settings.

People should only have a maximum of six visitors from one other household to their home.

While people can continue to meet socially in other settings, but only with people from at most one other household.

Minister Donnelly told The Hard Shoulder the national picture is concerning NPHET.

He said any such restrictions will probably mean a Halloween like no other before.

"People get more excited by Halloween than by Christmas in my house.

"We have no final advice from NPHET or public health on this yet."

But he warned: "We're going to have to look at it differently this year - but we can be creative, we can be innovative.

"We're going to have to be innovative.

"Is it wise to have the situation we usually have where our kids our walking around house by house by house?

"Given everything that's going on, there's no question whether that's going to be difficult.

"But look we will innovate, we will find ways of doing things - and maybe we need to go a bit more old school, bobbing apples and so forth.

"But it would be very hard to see how we could proceed as we have in previous years."

National picture 'concerning'

Asked if any counties stand out in the national picture, he said: "Donegal obviously is currently at this rate per 100,00 of nearly 220, Monaghan is high at nearly 170, Dublin is about 160, Roscommon is about 120, Longford now is nearly 100."

"But if you and I were having this conversation last week, there would have been different counties on that.

"It's moving around quite quickly.

"On a positive note - public health and me and you, we all focus on where the problems are and where this is rising - but actually there are counties who are making concerted efforts, coming together, talking to each other as communities, doing things on their local radio stations where they are driving the virus back".

He said he wants to see such initiatives being taken up "right around the country".

On the changes to household guidelines, he said: "I got a very stark letter from the Chief Medical Officer outlining why.

"He says the number of deaths is continuing to increase, the number of patients in hospital and in critical care is increasing rapidly.

"There's been a 30% increase in COVID hospitalisations just in the past week.

"The reproductive number - this R number - is now about 1.3, and he explains that that means that the number of cases doubles in about two to two and a half weeks.

"He reported that close contacts of a confirmed case remains the primary mode of transmissions across the country and that a lot of this is coming from within households.

"He points out that there's been a sharp rise for 19 to 24-year-olds.

"And he also says the seven day - this positivity rate - the number of people who test positive is now 3%, which has gone up quite a bit again in the past week.

"They are concerned - there are some initially, cautiously optimistic numbers coming out of Dublin - that the level three measures in Dublin may be beginning to work.

"But across the country, they are very concerned, they're trying to do everything they can really to stop other counties moving into level three - and hence they came up with that advice to me and to Government yesterday.

"And that's why we've accepted that advice".

As part of its advice, NPHET said the Government should also extend the level two measures currently in place for a further period of three weeks.