The Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said this Halloween and Christmas will be 'different' because of the coronavirus.
He also urged people to follow the health guidelines so people can look forward to "normalisation again".
He was speaking as counties Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are being moved onto level four of coronavirus restrictions.
Meanwhile all household visits across the country are to be banned, except for compassionate grounds and essential reasons like childcare and providing care to elderly or vulnerable people.
Mr Martin said people's behaviour needs to change as these are not normal times.
"We all know what spreads the virus - contact - and I think people have to adapt their behaviour to defeat the virus.
"And so on Halloween people will have to adapt their behaviour, it'll be a different Halloween, it doesn't mean Halloween itself is cancelled it's just a different Halloween.
"I don't think we can have people knocking on doors along a street or in an estate as one would normally do, because that means contact with senior citizens, older neighbours and so on - that's just not possible this year."
"But there are many other ways of enjoying Halloween safely and in a way that is consistent with defeating the virus.
"We can have no more street parties of any kind for anything - that's the bottom line - the less congregation the better.
"Less congregation, less engagement, reduce your social contacts to an absolute minimum, that's the only way we can defeat this virus."
On Christmas, Mr Martin suggested people can still enjoy it but in a different way.
"The measures we are taking are fundamentally about defeating the virus - that's our first priority.
"Obviously, we want to maintain a quality of life for people as well.
"I think if people adapt and change their behaviour to defeat the virus of course we can have a good Christmas and an enjoyable Christmas - maybe a different Christmas because the virus is still alive.
"Until we get a vaccine, normal life will not resume as we knew it - that is the essential issue.
"There's work on the way in relation to that and we've taken measures to ensure we can procure a vaccine when one is produced.
"But prior to that happening, we've got to adapt our bahaviour.
"These are not normal times and our behaviour must reflect that, but we can still have a good quality of life as we do that.
"The sooner we all collectively do what is recommended, then I think we can look forward to normalisation again and a better quality of life overall".
Reporting by: Sean Defoe
