The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has said that one case the Omicron sub-variant BA.2.86 has been detected in Ireland in recent weeks.
The variant, also known as Pirola, was designated a Variant Under Monitoring (VOM) by the World Health Organization in August and later by the European Centre for Disease Control.
The HPSC said that with this variant, there does not appear to be any evidence to date of increased transmissibility, or impact of clinical severity.
Pirola was first reported in Israel on 13 August. Cases have since been detected in Denmark, the UK, US and South Africa, but the prevalence to date has been low, according to the HPSC.