"Everyone understands it won’t be done in one go, in one fell swoop."

The government is preparing a plan on how to reopen the economy, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said. Varadkar will be sharing the plan regarding the steps involved in reopening Irish society with the public before May 5. The steps will involve changes being made every two or three weeks, and will not commence until after the current restrictions are completed on May 5. "There won't be any change to the restrictions until 5 May," he told RTÉ's Prime Time. "But at the moment we are preparing a plan which we'll have ready before then, which will set out in a step-wise fashion how we will reopen our economy, how we will reopen our society." https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1252702615277838336?s=20 Varadkar said that he didn't want to give the public "false assurances" as the easing of restrictions will depend on testing, hospital capacity, and the rate of virus infection. He did, however, say that he is hoping there will be an ease of the restrictions currently in place by May 5. “I think everyone understands it won’t be done in one go, in one fell swoop. It won’t be back to normal on day one,” he said. “That is what I’m hoping when I stand up there to speak to the Irish people in early May (...) But I don’t want to give a false assurance now.” This comes after it was announced that all mass gatherings of over 5,000 people are to be banned until late August at the earliest. Many major sporting events, music festivals, and concerts due to take place over the summer will need to be postponed or cancelled as the government will not be licensing such events. Ireland's current Covid-19 movement restrictions are in place until May 5. Minister for Health Simon Harris recently said that although he is hopeful some restrictions will be eased soon, the virus is likely to be "with us for a very long time."