The head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) has said they have to be honest with people over what happens when level five coronavirus restrictions end.
The highest level of restrictions are set to be lifted on December 1st.
But Paul Reid told Newstalk Breakfast people will still need to limit their social contacts.
"We're getting to a much better place than we had been during October."
But he said Europe now makes up nine of the top 10 countries in the world with the highest number of cases.
He said while "the trends are good" for Ireland, "I think we have to learn from what happened earlier on in the year as the economy and society opened up in June and July.
"And then in August, September, October - particularly in October - we saw massive rises in the cases again.
"So I think we have to learn from that period this time, in terms of how we organise our lives through December and onwards after that.
"How we continuously reduce our numbers of contacts that we have, how we protect our households, how we reduce the number of people we have in our household and the households we visit".
"Christmas is a very important time for families, it's a very important time for Irish society, it's hugely valued by everybody.
"And we do need to give people good hope and encouragement that the actions they're taking now does merit us all having a reasonable Christmas.
"But I think we equally have to be honest with people and just say as well that if we manage to work through December and throughout Christmas by carrying on the behaviours that we're doing at the moment, and it's really about reducing our contacts, it's a really big important factor that we don't end up in the same position heading into January, February or March.
"It's too early to say right now, because there's another few weeks to go of the current restrictions, it's too early to say what that will all look like."
Permanent test and trace staff
On the test and trace system, Mr Reid said permanent staff will be place in the new year.
"Over one weekend we did become overwhelmed where were seeing over 1,250 cases every day, 3,500 over a weekend.
"It did happen, it shouldn't have happened, it did happen".
But he explained that Ireland remains one of the few countries that are still systematically testing close contacts "on day zero and day seven."
"We will have a permanent workforce on both swabbing and also on the contact tracing.
"And we will be able to redeploy significant numbers of our people who are redeployed from other services in the health service back to those key roles.
"We also have significant extra capacity now - we now have about 126,000 on the island capacity of lab testing".
Support for nursing homes
On support for nursing homes, he said: "The reality of all of this is ourselves, HIQA, the Department [of Health] and Nursing Homes Ireland work very closely, very regularly."
"Just to say that that is happening and does happen.
"Specifically HIQA would give us some details of nursing homes that they would see at risk and we would mobilise into those nursing homes.
"Some of them would have been the ones that came into severe focus in the last few days, and others [are] some of those which we now have under intense watch would not have been identified.
"So it's largely the volatility of the virus".
Mr Reid also said the HSE is working closely with unions to ensure healthcare workers are protected.
"One of the hardest things I've done in my professional career is talking to some families who have lost loved ones in the health service through COVID.
"It is a very tough period for people when that happens, absolutely, for families.
"We've been working very closely with the trade unions, with trade union leaders, in terms of how we put in further protections and continuously protect.
"There's a significant investment in our PPE that we would do, significant investment in our occupational health teams".
