The Tanaiste has warned that the Government may be advising people not to travel between the north and south once restrictions ease over the Christmas.
Leo Varadkar expressed concern about cross border travel in the Dail last night.
He expressed growing concerns about travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic due to the alarmingly high number of cases in the region.
Seven deaths and 533 cases of Covid-19 were announced today in Northern Ireland.
The Tanaiste said cases will inevitably rise once restrictions are eased in December.
He said travel across the border may not be advised, where possible, and the matter would be considered by government.
He added: “The way to infantilise people is not to tell them the truth.”
Six further Covid-19 deaths were reported in Ireland today, along with an additional 269 confirmed cases of the virus.
The Tanaiste told the Dail that cross-border travel represented a “real risk” that the Government could not ignore.
He claimed there had been a “less intensive approach” to tackling the virus in Northern Ireland since the outset of the pandemic.
He said: “The incidence of the virus in Northern Ireland is a multiple of what it is in this state and so is the mortality rate.
“Northern Ireland is a different jurisdiction and makes its own decisions under the Good Friday Agreement and we respect that.
“But we would be in denial not to recognise that the less intensive approach to the virus there, since the start, has its consequences.”
He said Ireland’s public health authorities collected “very good data” on cases imported to Ireland due to international travel.
He added: “Such data do not exist for cases linked to cross-border travel on the island.
“This is a gap in our data which needs to be closed as it affects our ability to make evidence-based decisions.”