Trinity College Dublin has "strongly encouraged" students to wear face masks in lectures, labs, tutorials and libraries, as Covid-19, influenza and RSV continue to circulate.
Students return to the campus today and received an email on Friday around the mask-wearing advice.
They said that widespread mask-wearing will protect the "medically vulnerable" members of the college community.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Medical Director at the College Health Service David McGrath said that communications were sent to students before Christmas "about the likelihood of significant problems" in the health system because of the respiratory illnesses.
"It’s important to us now that our students are returning, just really to update them on the situation and also to realise that many, many of our students are not from Ireland and might have been at home for Christmas, might have no idea what's happening now."
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He said that mask-wearing on campus "in general, certainly in external spaces had probably ended," but that there were still a number of people wearing masks.
"They were usually people who were vulnerable themselves, wearing masks indoors and have continued to do that," Mr McGrath said.
He added that it is being advised because social distancing is no longer being used in lecture halls.
"We don’t have any two metres in seating now as we had before. That changed a 400-seater lecture theatre to a 30-seater lecture theatre, so now we’re back at 400 people."
He said that "at the moment there isn’t a supply of masks" on campus and "it is a case of bring your own".
