With the vaccine rollout gathering pace, August is when normality should return, he said.

“I think we have to get through another winter to be sure, but I do think life will pretty much back to normal by August,” he said.

While he said most things will be back to normal by then, some restrictions will still remain longer term in relation to mass gatherings and international travel.

Mr Varadkar said his best guess, by looking at what has gone on in the UK and in Israel, which are a bit ahead of us in terms of vaccination, where life is pretty much back to normal, Ireland could look to be there by August.

"Life in Israel is pretty much back to normal – they're welcoming tourists again and they're having, not very large gatherings, but they are having mass gatherings. 

"They kind of got to that point when they were at, where we would expect to be by August,” he said.

“So, I'm hoping that that's the month when things are relatively normal again. That doesn't mean that everything will be the same, but the vast majority of restrictions, you would hope to see gone by August of this year.

Kids going back to school as normal, and September, college happening on campus and September, October, all those things, and then a pretty normal Christmas in terms of seeing our friends and relations."

But Mr Varadkar caveated his comments by saying nobody can promise that timeline, adding this is the new virus, which is only around a year or so, and the vaccines aren't even around a year, and we just can't know  for sure.

“It's possible that the efficacy of the vaccines could wear off after a certain point of time. We don't know what might happen in terms of variants that may be vaccine-resistant. We don't know what will happen when the winter comes,” he said.

Changes to vaccine rollout

At the same press conference, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said he is to meet with the chief medical officer and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) about potential changes to the vaccine rollout schedule based on the most recent recommendations.

He said a special Cabinet meeting could be called this week to decide on any changes.

Mr Donnelly said it is still possible that younger cohorts of people could get vaccines alongside and in parallel with older cohorts as is already happening.

He said the approach taken on the vaccine programme means the number one priority always is safety.

“We vaccinate according to risk, so we're continuing with the ages, and we said we wouldn't leave any spare vaccines. The vaccines would go out as soon as possible,” he said.

He said those two competing priorities have led to “moments of conflict” with each other and so later on this week the Government will be making decisions on how to approach that.

Mr Donnelly said the Government will deliver “about 80%” of vaccines to adults by the end of June, in a softening of the previous target of 82% given by Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

He said the country will get to about 80% by the end of June, but it is depending on vaccine supply, and said it is possible that 450,000 vaccines a week could be delivered.

He said it may be possible for vaccine centres to run 24 hours a day. 

“If we needed to run them late at night, early in the morning, then we can do that,” he said.

“It is possible, and if we get the vaccines in at the rate they're meant to come in, then we'll hit about 80%. 

"But we all know that it's been very bumpy and we had some very serious downward revisions from AstraZeneca, for example, which made it more difficult. Then we got an extra big shipment in from Pfizer which we weren't expecting. 

"As things stand today, if we get the vaccines in according to schedule, and if we keep getting them out as soon as they come into the country, then we then we will be at around 80% at the end of June,” Mr Donnelly said.