Professor Anthony Staines:

I think we would get less severe restrictions across all counties. It has never made great sense to me that pubs that serve food are open or were allowed to open while pubs that did not serve food were not allowed to open.

We have risk-based assessments. If, in a particular county, cases start spreading wildly, then we take more drastic action. However, we are doing it at county level and we are doing it with a purpose in mind. We are not saying that this week we are closing Kildare, next week we are closing Donegal and the week following that we are closing Galway. We are not playing whack-a-mole with outbreaks of the virus throughout the country. We are trying to get ahead of the virus.