'I don’t want to give my press officer a heart attack': Leo Varadkar defends two metre social distancing ahead of Bank Holiday

Mr Varadkar thanked the public for their response to the guidelines to date and said if they had not been introduced there could have been 30,000 deaths from Covid-19.

Wider calls have been this week to reduce the coronavirus social distancing rules in public as well as in work to help the hospitality industry reopen quicker.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has defended the two metre social distance guideline saying that two metres is safer than one metre if in the vicinity of a person with the virus.

Speaking on Dublin radio station FM104, Mr Varadkar said that two metres was a guideline, not the law or a regulation, but it was a guideline to which he was asking people to adhere.