Mandates around mask wearing mean we are not living with COVID-19, The Hard Shoulder host Kieran Cuddihy says.

It comes as a plan to draft new mandatory mask laws has been approved by Cabinet.

Ministers have given the go-ahead for the new legislation, which will allow the Government to re-introduce mandatory masks in certain settings if necessary.

Giving his view earlier, Kieran says this isn't the way we should be going.

"What lunacy is this, you might have been wondering - it's certainly what I was wondering.

"On closer inspection, it's not quite the knee-jerk reaction I thought it might have been to rising cases at the moment.

"What it does mean at some point - maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow - but at some point down the line, the mask debate will be reignited.

"I know there's some people out there, and in the teeth of rising cases they get great comfort in seeing more and more people wearing masks.

"For others I know listening to this show, they are an absolute waste of time.

"A classic case of doing something just to be seen to be doing something.

"Mask or no mask, COVID will peak and trough and peak and trough and so on - and we just have to learn to live with it.

"And mask mandates are not living with it".