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Ireland may ease coronavirus restrictions on April 12 - health minister

A man walks past a pub in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day as public events were cancelled as the number of coronavirus cases grow around the world

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland hopes to be in a position in two weeks to tweak or remove some of the highly restrictive measures introduced on Friday if it can slow down the rate of admission to intensive care units, Health Minister Simon Harris said.

"Will we be in a position on April 12 where life in Ireland can return to normal? Absolutely not. Let's be honest with each other, these are measures that we are going to need continue to work at," Harris told national broadcaster RTE on Saturday.

"Do we hope to be in a position in two weeks' time to say that we've made progress and some of the measures can be tweaked, removed, changed? Absolutely.

"The measures that we put in place last night were so significant that they cannot be kept in place for too long. You cannot ask people to sustain this for a very long time."

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by Jason Neely)