All Ministers are restricting their movements.
A Government Minister has tested positive for COVID-19, it's been revealed.
As a result, all ministers are restricting their movements following confirmation that a Cabinet colleague has tested positive.
They will do so until they have been tested and receive their results.
It comes as the Government urges people to reconsider their plans for Christmas.
Senior government official says Liz Canavan people planning to visit elderly relatives need to think twice.
''We really need to consider that very carefully, asses where we have been and especially how many people either ourselves or our household members have come into contact with in the lead up'', she said.
Meanwhile HSE CEO Paul Reid said testing and tracing will continue throughout Christmas:
''All of our swabbing, tracing and testing will continue on Christmas day and throughout the whole of Christmas, we now have 750 full time staff on contact tracing, and we have a surge resource being put on top of that''.
The Government says the decision to return to level 5 restrictions over Christmas was not taken lightly, but the increase in cases could not be ignored.
