Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told his Fine Gael parliamentary party colleagues last night that Ireland could return to a version of Level 4 restrictions after March 5th.
A move to Level 4 could allow people to travel within their own county and would permit outdoor dining, according to the Government's Living with Covid plan.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) will meet today to consider the current levels of the virus in Ireland after 54 Covid-related deaths and 1,335 new cases were reported on Wednesday - 49 in Waterford.
Ireland's national 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 is now 674.2 after 32,103 new cases of the virus were detected in the State between January 13th and 26th.
According to the HSE, the number of people with the virus being treated in public hospitals has fallen to 1,598, while there are 212 patients in ICU nationally.
At University Hospital Waterford there were 106 patients being treated with Covid-19 at 8pm last night (Wednesday) - a decrease on the previous day's figure of 118.
7 patients remain in Critical Care.
ICU consultant and vice-president of the Intensive Care Society, Alan Gaffney says the situation is improving in critical care units
"We are starting to see the numbers in ICU reaching a plateau. It does leave us just within our maximum surge capacity across the whole system.
"There are individual units which have reached or exceeded their surge capacity and these particular units' patients have been transferred to other hospitals across the country to try to help those units which are under more pressure by being at or above their surge capacity."
On Tuesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin extended current Level 5 restrictions until the beginning of March, increasing rules surrounding the need to quarantine upon arrival into Ireland.
Passengers arriving into the country without a negative PCR test from no more than 72 hours prior to arrival will be face a mandatory quarantine at a dedicated facility for 14 days.
