Martin said the emergence of the Covid-19 variants had "changed the landscape in relation to this virus".
Hotel quarantining mesures for arrivals into the country from specific countries should be in place by the middle of February, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
Travellers from countries with an increased risk of variants of Covid-19 or without a negative PCR test in the three days before arrival will be forced to undergo mandatory quarantine in one of these hotels.
There has been criticism in recent days regarding the speed of the roll out of hotel quarantining facilities but Martin said he didn't believe the measure was taking too long and would be broadly in line with the UK timeline.
“We announced it two weeks ago, we thought we would move in this direction," Martin said.
"We’ve brought in a raft of measures since that government decision from police checking at airports, to increasing fines from €100 to €500 if you’re in breach of level five on the way to the airport, to the mandatory home quarantining, and a number of other measures as well.
“The mandatory quarantining in terms of the hotel facilities, is the next stage and work is already underway in relation to that.”
Martin said the emergence of the Covid-19 variants had "changed the landscape" and said there is a real effort to suppress the virus by rolling out the vaccine.
“We do accept that the variants have changed the landscape in relation to this virus, very significantly, and we are in a race, in respect of rolling out the vaccination program, the prolonged suppression of the virus itself, and reducing all potential for its spread,” he said.
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