One of the country's leading Covid experts has said further restrictions are not warranted in Ireland despite soaring Covid case numbers nationwide.
Luke O'Neill, a professor of immunology at Trinity College Dublin, believes infections will peak within the next three weeks, with "normality" to return by May.
It comes after the World Health Organisation criticised Ireland this week as being one of the countries that "brutally" eased restrictions.
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Prof O'Neill said the comment was "harsh" and that our government was right in its approach to ease measures as people cannot be "constrained" indefinitely.
However, there was one decision that was incorrectly made, he added, and he is calling for masks to be "mandated" in settings such as public transport again.
Ireland is in the middle of another wave of Covid infections, largely thanks to more virulent strains of the disease like Omicron and its 'sister' BA.2, which he says is "everywhere".
The leading immunologist says that not only will mask-wearing mitigate the risk of contracting and transmitting this incredibly infectious variant, but it will also reduce pressure on the health system which is a top priority.
"The masks are important because even though they may not be perfect, they make a difference - they'll decrease spread," he told the Irish Mirror.
"BA.2 is highly transmissible so there's a chance it might get past the mask but the mask will lower the dose so that means the other person getting infected will have a lower dose and they're less likely to develop severe disease.
"Masks aren't just about being 100% foolproof, they also reduce the dose of the virus being spread and that's a useful thing to decrease overall disease burden."
He said Covid is a respiratory virus that spreads indoors, so "while we're all still indoors in crowds, it makes sense to wear masks".
"By the time you get to May, we're back outdoors again and there's no need for masks as much because we're outdoors more anyway," he said.
"The [case] count is going to go right down in the next three weeks, we're going to see that the surge will be over and once we get to May, it will be normal again.
"The hospital pressure will be gone and there's no need for these things then because the pressure will be off the health system."
He believes people should continue to wear face coverings on public transport and that this should be made mandatory by the government.
"For the moment, public transport is a huge source of infection because people are crammed in together, there's usually poor ventilation, it's a time in your day when you're going to spend 20/30 minutes in close contact with potentially someone who is extremely infectious," Prof O'Neill explained.
"That's the most important one I think, and I would mandate that because obviously the DART people can't arrest people at the moment and it's not illegal.
"We don't want to see these things but in this period I think it would take pressure off the hospital system so it's justifiable.
"Outside that, any crowded indoor setting, people should discern themselves then and realise if they're going into a shop that's crowded then they should put their mask on."
Government leaders were mistaken in lifting the mask requirement for setting like public transport, but otherwise, the decision to lift all restrictions was the right one, he added.
He acknowledged that the WHO want to keep people safe, which is reflective of their comments this week.
"It's understandable that the WHO would say that, they're the World Health Organisation and they're going to want to keep things under control," he said.
"But you're balancing that with the need for people to get their lives back.
"So I think what we did in Ireland was good, the only thing I would criticise is the public transport issue with the masks, I would have kept that a bit longer.
"But everything else I would have gone along with because it's very hard to keep people constrained for months on end because there are negative impacts to that as well.
"I wouldn't use the word brutally, that was a bit harsh."
Prof O'Neill doesn't envisage the need for further restrictions, apart from the mask rule, as we can look forward to a "normal" May and summer ahead in terms of the virus.
"We can look forward to the summer because as we know, it is a respiratory virus that spreads in winter," he said.
"The other coronavirus that we know about, because we look at those as a comparison, they peaked late winter/early spring and there's no reason why this one cant become like that.
"We can anticipate a summer that is the one we want and the pressure will be off the health system, I'm pretty confident of that."
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