Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly plans to bring proposals to Cabinet on Tuesday to ban takeaway sales from pubs for the remainder of the Level 5 lockdown.
The move follows reports of extensive open-air drinking at the weekend.
Video and images on social media showed people congregating and drinking alcohol on the streets in Dublin and Cork, against public health advice.
Mr Donnelly is expected to inform colleagues that he will introduce new regulations to ban the sale of takeaway pints and cocktails as long as the country has Level 5 restrictions in place, according to The Irish Times.
The State has been under these curbs, the most severe in the Government’s Living with Covid-19 plan, since October and they are due to remain in place until December 1st at least.
Some pubs have been selling takeaway pints and cocktails during this time – under licensing regulations, these drinks cannot be consumed within 100 metres of the premises that sold them.
Earlier, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was “extremely concerned” by the scenes on the streets of people not adhering to Covid-19 measures, adding that it puts the progress being made in the fight against the virus into “jeopardy”.
“I’m extremely concerned and very annoyed about it,” Mr Martin told Red FM.
“I think it flies in the face of what’s acceptable in terms of adherence to the guidelines and regulations, because we all have to work to try and get the incidence of the virus down.”
The Taoiseach said Level 5 restrictions had been “working well” and Ireland was now “probably the best in Europe” in terms of its downward trajectory of the disease in recent weeks.
“What has been happening in the last week put all that at risk and in jeopardy,” he said.
“That puts frontline workers in our hospitals under pressure, it puts our ICU beds under pressure.
“Widescale congregation of people on streets just facilitates the spreading of the virus, so we are going to have to review, in particular, the whole takeaway pint and alcohol phenomenon.”
