The Department of Health has reported 7,411 new cases of Covid-19.
As of 8pm last night there were 377 people with Covid-19 in the country's hospitals, a reduction of 23 from yesterday morning.
Of these, 98 people are being treated in intensive care.
The Mater hospital in Dublin has the highest number of Covid patients in ICU at 14, followed by Dublin's St James's hospital with 13, while University Hospital Limerick and Tallaght each have ten people receiving care in ICU.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: "With Omicron now accounting for almost three quarters of cases in Ireland, today's high number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is not unexpected, and we expect to see a rapid increase in case figures over the coming short period of time.
"It is imperative that all of us, to the greatest extent possible, make every effort we can in the next two to three weeks to only meet with members of our own households. Consider you plans over the Christmas period and into the early part of the New Year and try to keep your contacts as low as possible.
"If someone in the household receives a "detected" or "positive" test result either via a PCR test or an antigen test, then all members of the household should restrict their movements and not attend work or socialise with others."
Dr Holohan added that anyone who has recently arrived in Ireland from overseas should "take an antigen test for the five days following your arrival into Ireland".
It comes as Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly confirmed that booster vaccines will be made available from next Wednesday for people aged between 30-39 and those who received the Janssen vaccine.
He said: "As we face into a challenging period, it is important that all groups have the opportunity to be vaccinated with a booster to offer protection to as many people as possible."
📢📢📢 Further acceleration of our booster vaccination programme. For those aged 30-39 and those who received Janssen (ages 16-29) boosters will be available from NEXT WEDNESDAY. All remaining age groups will be opened up by the 10th of January. A super national effort 🙏
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) December 23, 2021
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
In Northern Ireland, the Department of Health confirmed 3,227 new Covid infections today along with one further death in the past 24 hours.
This morning, there were 254 Covid-positive patients in hospital, of whom 34 were in intensive care.
Meanwhile, 35 deaths linked to Covid-19 in Northern Ireland have been recorded in the latest weekly update.
The figure is up on the 28 fatalities in the previous week, according to data compiled by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).
The latest deaths, which happened in the week ending 17 December, take the total number of coronavirus-linked fatalities recorded by Nisra to 3,988.
The Nisra figure is drawn from different data sources and is always higher than the Department of Health's total, as it provides a broader picture of the impact of Covid-19.
On 17 December, the department had reported 2,949 deaths.
The department's statistics focus primarily on hospital deaths and only include people who have tested positive for the virus.
