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The Cabinet has agreed to keep schools closed until January 11th and keep the rest of the country under Level 5 restrictions until January 31st.
All non-essential retail will shut from close of business on Thursday and the 5km limit on travel will be reimposed.
Households visits will be banned, apart from exceptional circumstances, from midnight, under plans agreed by Ministers at a hastily arranged Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin is due to address the country with news of the further restrictions at 6pm.
The unscheduled meeting came after the State reported its highest number of daily Covid-19 cases (1,546) on Tuesday, since the start of the pandemic.
The meeting was hastily arranged on Tuesday following what was described as an “exponential” increase in the number of cases, the highest number of hospitalisations since May and a massive rise in referrals of suspected cases in the past week.
Minsters said they expected numbers to continue to grow sharply over the coming days reflecting increased social contacts at Christmas. “This is perhaps the most dangerous moment for the country since Covid-19 began,” said one Minister, speaking on the basis of anonymity.
The Government is set to reintroduce all Level 5 restrictions including the closure of non-essential retail as well as the reimposition of people being restricted to within 5km of their homes.
It will also end two days early the concession that allowed two families socialise in one home until December 31st. This is being done to reduce the opportunities for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The leaders of the three Coalition parties met in advance of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the measures that would be taken.
The Taoiseach is expected to address the nation at 6pm this evening. After this Mr Martin will join Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan for a press conference further detailing the new measures.
UK travel ban
It is understood Cabinet discussed extending the travel ban in place for flights and ferries coming from Britain into the Republic until January 6th.
The travel ban had been put in place over fears of a new Covid-19 variant identified in southeast England, and was previously extended until December 31st.
The new variant, which is believed to be significantly more transmissible, has since been detected in the Republic.
It is understood Cabinet is discussing proposals to extend the travel ban for a further week until January 6th, one source said. New arrangements would be put in place after that date, and “limited repatriation” of Irish citizens left stranded in Britain would continue in the meantime, the source said.
Earlier, Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath said the Government had to respond to the growing Covid-19 case numbers.
He said the Cabinet would take advice from Nphet and the removal of amendments to Level 5 – which allowed for non-essential retail to remain open – would have to be considered.
Mr McGrath also said that while the arrival of the vaccine into the State was positive, the last part of the journey could be “the most treacherous”. “We are at a very serious juncture,” he said.
Mr McGrath said the first responsibility of Government was to protect its people.
“The best thing all of us can do is to follow the rules and get this under control,” he said. “It is within our gift to get this under control.”
The Minister also acknowledged the work of teachers and SNAs, but said that the intention was that schools would reopen next week as planned.
Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris said on Tuesday that Ireland found itself in a “dark and worrying place” in relation to Covid-19.
Dr Ronan Glynn, the deputy chief medical officer, said while the start of the Covid-19 vaccination programme is “a very significant positive milestone”, vaccines will not “positively impact” on the profile of the virus in Ireland in the coming weeks.
“Tonight, there are more people in hospital with #COVID19 (411) than at any point since last May and admissions are rising very quickly,” Dr Glynn said on Twitter on Tuesday.
He urged the public to stay at home, not to meet up with others, not to go to work if you have any “concerning symptoms” and if you are identified as a close contact to restrict your movements and get tested when it is offered.
Vaccine rollout
Ireland stated its vaccine rollout on Tuesday and Annie Lynch, a 79-year-old Dublin grandmother, on Tuesday became the first person in the Republic to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
She was among 2,000 people, mostly frontline health workers, who received the first supply of the vaccine in four hospitals in Dublin, Galway and Cork.
Ireland is set to receive an additional one million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after the EU responded to surging case numbers by ramping up orders for the one treatment it has so far authorised.