New restrictions on travel come into effect on the night of St Stephen's Day.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said there will be an increased Garda presence on Irish roads due to the new public health restrictions, but said there will be no road blocks between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time on Tuesday night, Varadkar said there would be a Garda presence between counties, including along the border, when people are no longer allowed to travel beyond their county from the night of 26 December. "I wouldn’t say road blocks but there will be a police presence and the Taoiseach will be speaking to the Garda Commissioner about that," he said. He added that the Garda presence was necessary for the move back to staying within your county, except for essential reasons. Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Varadkar said the current trajectory of the virus meant the number of cases could surpass 1,000 per day by Christmas Day and rise to over 2,000 cases per day by the new year. There were 927 confirmed cases of Covid-19 reported in Ireland on Tuesday. He said that while vaccinations are expected to begin before the end of the year, it will be the end of February or early March next year before a critical mass of people have been vaccinated and as such, we can expect restrictions to remain in place for the first two months of the year. Varadkar added that we're seeing an exponential growth of cases in the country and the government is operating on the basis that the new variant of Covid-19 is already present in Ireland.