A member of the National Public Health Emergency Team says it's "impossible" to know when Covid 19 outbreaks in the midlands will be brought under control.
The number of Covid-19 cases increased by 174 on Saturday according to the Department of Health, while one additional death was recorded.
Most of the new cases were in Kildare, which is under lockdown along with Laois and Offaly for the next two weeks.
The total number of cases in the country is now 26,644 and the death toll has risen to 1,772. Of yesterday's cases, 124 were men and 48 were women, while 69 per cent were under the age of 45.
There were 110 cases recorded in Kildare, 27 in Dublin, seven in Cork, seven in Offaly and six in Meath. The remaining cases were spread across 13 other counties.
There are no new cases in Waterford.
There were no confirmed cases at University Hospital Waterford last night.
Three patients were awaiting the results of Covid testing at 8pm, one of which was in critical care.
Philip Nolan, chair of the NPHET Modelling Advisory Group, says it's unclear when clusters in meat plants will be dealt with:
"There's a lot of people being tested right now, we would expect to see quite a number of those test come through positive.
"We do expect to see relatively high case counts for the coming days.
"It's impossible to say when this will be wrestled back under control, it could be a matter of days, it could be significantly longer.
"Where these outbreaks were expected, I'm not sure we expected to see such a cluster of outbreaks in such a confined region of the country."
