The Deputy Chief Medical Officer says setting dates for lifting COVID-19 restrictions would be “disingenuous” at this point in time.
NPHET today reported 613 new cases of the virus, as well as 35 deaths.
The reproduction number is between 0.6 and 0.9, and the UK variant still accounts for 90% of cases.
There have been calls for health officials to set target dates for reopening society.
The plan published earlier this week gives no specific dates for reopening different sectors, other than the timelines set out for reopening schools, childcare and non-COVID health services during March and April.
Dr Ronan Glynn this evening said there is simply too much uncertainty due to the emergence of the UK variant.
He said: "Setting dates I think at this point would be disingenuous.
"We have a variant... basically we have a new virus, relative to what we were dealing with in 2020. It's more transmissible.
"We still have high levels of disease in the community, so we need to see how things go over the coming weeks: we need to continue suppressing the disease through March."
New variant
It has also been confirmed today that Ireland has recorded one case of the B1525 strain
It has previously been discovered in various countries around the world, including Australia, Denmark and the UK.
Dr Cillian De Gascun, the director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, said: "B1525 has been reported in a number of countries, and has been associated with travel from sub-Saharan Africa.
"The reason we're potentially concerned about it is it possesses the E484K amino acid change, which has been associated with a reduced response to neutralising antibodies - a potential impact on vaccine effectiveness."
However, officials have stressed it's far too early to tell if the vaccines will be less effective against the strain.
