The Minister for Health has said the new restrictions announced today to curb the spread of Covid-19 will put hundreds of thousands of people out of their jobs.
Simon Harris said the Government had to take what he described as "the very difficult decision" of shutting down non-essential shops and retail outlets in order to put public health first.
Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time, he said "we would not as a government have taken the serious steps of closing down many businesses and temporarily putting many people out of work, if we did not believe it was essential to save lives in this country" .
He said the actions will support the progress that people have already made. Minister Harris said "we are going to flatten the curve together.