''There's no right or wrong answer to this, it's a balancing act''.
The government will consider accelerating the easing of coronavirus restrictions if the number of new cases continues to decline, it's been reported.
Some aspects of phase 4 on July 20th could be brought forward to the end of June, according to the Irish Times.
Meanwhile a number of senior ministers are reportedly keen to reduce the two metre social distancing rule to one.
Infectious diseases professor Jack Lambert says doing that could work in certain situations.
''If you're in the hospital and you're wearing a mask, there's no reason to socially distance at all'', he said.
''If you're in the outdoors where the air is freely circulating I think one metre is fine. But if you're in a closed space where there's lots of people together congregating then two meteres is probably safer than one metre''.
''There's no right or wrong answer to this, it's a balancing act''.
